By Mary Meaux

The News staff writer

Port Arthur fire investigators spent much of Monday at the scene of a house explosion that damaged 33 homes on Mother’s Day.

Pieces of the home were blown far and wide with boards sitting high in a scorched tree in the backyard of the destroyed home owned by Gilbert and Margie Kasper. A piece of a roof landed across the street and numerous pieces of the house lay on the home to the right of the Kasper’s. Vehicles parked at the residence suffered major damage from the blast.

PAFD determined a probable natural gas leak occurred on the piping grid around 4:30 a.m. Sunday within the attic of the home at 2308 Green Ave. Weather conditions in the hours prior to the explosion were a factor and allowed the home to fill with natural gas before finding an ignition source within the residence.

The amount of natural gas in the house caused the severity and intensity of the explosion, officials said. The fire was determined to be accidental.

While officials sifted through the remains of the home neighbors and their family members watched and surveyed their own damage.

Juan Diaz and his family were asleep when the blast occurred.

“I heard this whoosh of air forced through, it felt like a bomb,” he said.

The explosion blew out windows of the Diaz’s home, caused sheetrock to crumble and fall and loosened insulation.

“He can’t get his wife’s screams out of his head,” friend Sandy Vargas said.

Diaz’s wife, at seven-months pregnant, began to experience contractions and was rushed to the hospital. Vargas said she is in good condition.

When the father of three children, ages 6, 8 and 10, rushed to check the rest of his family he saw broken glass all over the children’s beds and windows falling from their frames.

“They ran out of the house barefooted,” Vargas said.

The Diaz’s had recently purchased the home and were in the process of getting insurance. Their home, with new furniture, are destroyed and not much, if anything, can be salvaged, he said.