1 dead in Wisc. house explosion

SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. — A suburban home blew apart in an apparent natural gas explosion early Tuesday, killing a man and injuring two other people.

The explosion prompted police to evacuate residents of about 25 homes around the house in Sun Prairie, a bedroom community of about 30,000 people just outside Madison. A nearby elementary school also closed for the day.

Neighbors said they heard a blast that sounded like a bomb and a woman's screams, and stepped outside to chunks of insulation raining from the sky.

"We were in awe. The house was gone," said neighbor Donna Ladd, 48.

Sun Prairie Police spokesman Rem Brandt said the blast occurred around 3:25 a.m. He said a man was killed and another man and a woman in the house were taken to University Hospital. They were listed in serious condition with non-life threatening injuries, he said.

Their names and ages have not been released. Brandt said all three lived in the house but he couldn't elaborate on their relationships.

We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said the cause of the explosion is still under investigation but it appears to have been caused by natural gas. The utility received several reports of a strong odor of natural gas and shut off service to the area, he said.

Nothing was left of the house but piles of rubble. Debris hung in trees and crumpled strips of siding were scattered around the backyard of the house next door. What may once have been a recliner was jammed into a tree. Bits of yellow-brown insulation covered the surrounding streets, lawns and cars like snow.

"It (was) a big bang," said Marv Klang, 57, who lives two doors down from the house. "I thought it was a car accident. When I saw a couch in the street I knew it wasn't that."

The Sun Prairie School District closed Westside Elementary School, which stands a couple blocks from the house, as a precaution, Brandt said. Evacuees were initially taken to the school, but were later moved to Sunshine Place, a facility that houses a number of charitable organizations.

Police allowed the evacuees to visit to their homes around 8:30 a.m. to gather belongings. Weary-looking, pajama-clad evacuees, some with blankets wrapped around their shoulders, shuffled down the street into the neighborhood.

One of them, Michael Glaus, 20, said he was sleeping on the couch in his house, which backs up to the home that exploded, when a "boom" woke him up.

He went outside and saw the woman who lived in the house standing where her front door used to be, screaming for help.

"Her screaming scared the bejeezus out of me," he said. "You could smell the gas instantly."