Royal Oak, MI – A leaking natural gas line likely caused the explosion Wednesday that leveled a Royal Oak house, killed a 58-year-old man and damaged more than 30 houses, a Consumers Energy spokeswoman said Thursday.
Spokeswoman Debra Dodd said the damage to the line likely occurred as Consumers Energy crews were replacing gas lines in the area, part of what she has called a civic-improvement program.
Consumers Energy, a subsidiary of Jackson-based CMS Energy Corp., also was the utility company connected to a deadly explosion in the city of Wayne in 2010.
Audio: Royal Oak house explosion: Listen to 911 calls
Dodd said residents of 12 houses on Elmwood, which is east of the blast site on Cooper, were being allowed to return to their homes Thursday night. Consumers Energy planned to conduct interior testing on gas lines in those homes to ensure their safety. It’s unclear when other residents, whose residences were evacuated, would be allowed back.
The man killed in the blast was 58-year-old Daniel Malczynski, said Royal Oak Police Lt. David Clemens. The Royal Oak man died of multiple blast-type injuries, according to Oakland County Medical Examiner Dr. L.J. Dragovic.
Relatives said Malczynski was a retired GM worker. He lived alone in the 4000 block of Cooper Avenue.
Rob Malczynski, 41, of West Bloomfield Township was shocked to hear Wednesday that his father’s cousin was killed in the explosion. He expected to see him this summer at a family reunion Up North.
He was the life of the party, no matter what he did, Rob Malczynski said. He was the guy who made everybody laugh, just a genuine person. When you hear of stuff like this, it makes you want to go, why him?
Rob Malczynski said Malczynski was divorced and has three adult daughters.
The blast just before 5 p.m. Wednesday shook an otherwise quiet neighborhood to action.
Cooper Avenue resident Nicholas Sikora, 27, said he was standing in his home with his sister and their roommate when they heard and felt the home two doors down explode.
Everything shook and all the windows broke, he said. We got the heck out of the house
All that remained at the blast site was rubble.
I went, ‘That house was gone, hopefully he’s not in thereI can help the people next door,’ Sikora said. That was pretty much the thought process.
He ran to the home in between his and the blast site to rescue an elderly woman.
Me and another guy pulled the door off, and another guy pulled her out and we got her into our kitchen, Sikora said. She’s a very elderly lady, but she was really lucky she just had a cut on her leg.
Royal Oak Fire Chief Chuck Thomas said aside from the fatality, there were no reports of serious injuries other than scrapes and scratches from the explosion on Cooper that blew out scores of windows. Three houses, however, do have extensive damage. Businesses on the next block along Woodward Avenue also were damaged.
The last home explosion in Royal Oak happened more than 20 years ago, Thomas said.
Two streets Cooper and Elmwood remained blocked Thursday evening.
Cooper Avenue resident Chris Meissner, 42, had just picked up her 13-year-old son and 11-year-old twins from school and pulled into the neighborhood as fire trucks were arriving Wednesday.
The explosion blew out Meissner’s front windows and knocked her garage crooked on its foundation.
But inspectors did not find any cracks in the brick of her home, making Meissner wonder how long it will be before she and her family are allowed to return.
We’re hoping that’s a good sign, she said.
Consumers Energy is paying for hotel rooms at the Quality Inn on Rochester Court in Troy for those who need a place to stay; only a few people checked in Wednesday night.
Dodd, the Consumers Energy spokeswoman, said the company is working with local police and fire investigators and the Michigan Public Service Commission. Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the federal agency has opted to delegate the investigation to the Public Service Commission, which has already sent investigators to the scene. Knudson said the commission would share its findings with the NTSB.
Dodd said utility workers would try to collect relevant salvageable items from the house, such as the gas meter, sections of natural gas pipeline and gas appliances and send them to an independent testing laboratory for analysis. She said the Consumers Energy crews had finished their work in the same block of Cooper prior to the explosion, which was reported before 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Dodd, who said that our hearts and prayers go out to the victim’s family, said some media outlets had reported that neighbors smelled gas in the area prior to the explosion.
We always want to stressif you ever smell that distinct rotten egg odor, call us immediately (at 800-477-5050). We’ll respond 24/7, Dodd said.
Any investigation into the cause of the blast could take considerable time. The Public Service Commission has not completed its investigation into the Dec. 29, 2010 explosion that destroyed the William C. Franks Furniture store in Wayne. Consumers Energy said its own year-long investigation in the case left the cause undetermined.
Paul Franks spent nearly two months at the University of Michigan hospital after that explosion, with much of that time in its burn unit.
His employees James Zell, 64, and Leslie Machniak, 54, died.
Paul pulled up in his truck, he got out of his truck and he opened the door, and his two employees went in the store, said Jules Olsman, Franks’ attorney. When they went in the store, Paul turned to go get something out of his truck and woke up in the burn center several weeks later.
Franks and relatives of Zell and Machniak sued Consumers Energy Company in Wayne Circuit Court. The cases were settled, but details of the settlements are confidential, court documents show.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Franks indicated the explosion was believed to be caused by natural gas that leaked from a gas main owned, operated and maintained by Consumers.
Olsman, noting that the line believed to have leaked was 75 years old, said he believes an aging infrastructure of the energy grid leads to very dangerous, though rare, situations for the public.
He said Franks is doing well but his business no longer exists and he’s since retired.
Judy Palnau, a spokeswoman for the Public Service Commission, said staff members will remain at the Royal Oak explosion site as long as needed. Staffers will complete a report and then the commission will determine whether it needs to issue an order.
It is a slow but methodical process, Palnau said, noting that it’s way too early to speculate about the order. She said such orders could call for fines or offer instructions on how a utility should conduct similar work in a neighborhood in the future.
The gas main in the Royal Oak neighborhood was made of steel and built in 1929, Palnau said. The service to the home that exploded was made of copper and built in 1958, she said.
Just because there was an incident doesn’t necessarily mean it was aging infrastructure; it could be other factors, she said.
Palnau said the public service commission has a staff of six gas safety inspectors who cover all of Michigan.
Gas lines that run out of the state of Michigan are overseen by the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation.