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Explosion like ‘war zone,’ resident says

Eric Suttman and his children, Eliot, 4, and Declan, 1, walk from the scene of an explosion at Veolia Environmental Services on Infirmary Road on Monday afternoon, May 4. Suttman, who lives about a mile away, said the explosion blew out window panes at his home on Soldiers Home-Miamisburg Road.

Staff photo by Jan Underwood Eric Suttman and his children, Eliot, 4, and Declan, 1, walk from the scene of an explosion at Veolia Environmental Services on Infirmary Road on Monday afternoon, May 4. Suttman, who lives about a mile away, said the explosion blew out window panes at his home on Soldiers Home-Miamisburg Road.

Graphic by Ted Pitts View the location of the Veolia Environmental Services plant.

ENLARGE PHOTO

An overnight explosion and fire in West Carrollton at an industrial plant on Infirmary Rd. was still burning early Monday, May 4.

Staff photo by Ty Greenlees An overnight explosion and fire in West Carrollton at an industrial plant on Infirmary Rd. was still burning early Monday, May 4.

Robert Leifheit/Chemical Plant on Infirmary Rd in West Carrollton, causes quite a disturbance as it explodes into flames around 12:00 am Monday May 4th, 2009.

Photo by Robert Leifheit for the Dayton Daily News Robert Leifheit/Chemical Plant on Infirmary Rd in West Carrollton, causes quite a disturbance as it explodes into flames around 12:00 am Monday May 4th, 2009.

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By Katherine Ullmer, James Cummings and Thomas Gnau, Staff Writers Updated 12:56 AM Tuesday, May 5, 2009

WEST CARROLLTON — Brian Stevens and his wife were awakened just after midnight Monday, May 4, by an explosion that blew out six windows, broke both door jambs and knocked in the bottom of the garage door.

“It blew the window frames into the house,” knocked pictures off the wall and “broke a couple of globes off some of the lights,” he said.

Stevens, 52, of 4024 Infirmary Road, lives across a field about 300 yards from the Veolia Environmental Services plant, where an explosion triggered a fire and huge plumes of smoke.

Stevens said police put yellow tape about 50 feet from his home, blocking access to the area and told him if he left the house, he would not be allowed back in until all the chemicals had burned out.

Stevens, an electrician, was scheduled to work on a school in Hamilton. He stayed home.

“A cop let a buddy of mine in last night to bring in some plywood to board up the windows,” he said. There was no mandatory evacuation, said Stevens, who lives north of the factory.

Christine Smith, who lives in the Pineview Estates trailer park on Farmersville-West Carrollton Pike, about a mile from the explosion, said, “It sucked my storm windows out. The windows just flew out.”

Smith said food fell off shelves and pictures fell off the walls.

She and other trailer park residents said they felt one huge concussion followed by several smaller explosions.

“It was almost like we were in a war zone. We heard explosions all night,” she said.

Dennie Madden said he lives at the back of the trailer park, farthest from the explosion. At the sound of the blast, he ran outside thinking a trailer had exploded.

“When I got close to the street, I could see flames rolling and rolling up into the air,” he said, estimating that the flames were about 100 feet high.

Andre Siyahi, 21, of Miamisburg, found himself climbing fences and crossing corn fields, covered in mud, to get a good view of the explosion.

“The house shakes, windows start rattling,” Siyahi recalled. “I went outside and thought, ‘I might as well see what it is.’ ”

Soon, he was on the road, with his Canon G2 camera, following smoke and flames. He parked at an auto body shop and walked through “some corn fields, some farmer’s fields, jumped over barbed wire, some woods.”

From a spot “right by the fence,” Siyahi said he could feel “the heat from the fire.”

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