https://jalopnik.com/fatal-gas-explosion-ne...-may-1833944119

Just saw that....ouch!!!

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Ah man that's awful. I remember hearing about a small house with a gas explosion about a mile away from me years ago and we could hear the blast.

I just heard about this too. A buddy of mine who works in downtown Durham a few blocks from the explosion said he could feel the building he was in shake.

I've walked past that building probably a hundred times. Never had any idea what was in it.

Yeah, Bob Ingram kept it understandably understated to camouflage what was inside. Minerva and I were very fortunate to be invited to have Christmas dinner with the Ingrams and 11 other couples right there in the collection 5 or 6 years ago. It was awe inspiring to sit among some of the rarest and beautiful Porsches on the planet and the Ingrams are such wonderful and kind people. Bob's sons run Roads Scholars in Durham and his son Cam spent a lot of time with me telling me many stories about how he got his father Bob interested in Porsches and many stories about how they found and restored many of the cars.

https://roadscholars.com

We almost purchased a house that my wife really liked but I wasn't on board. A year later it blew off it's foundation from a gas leak. The debris looked like it had been sent through a woodchipper. Nobody was home but chances are, If we had purchased it, My MIL would have been home with our first born since she lived with us.

Wonder if we will see the red car resurrected. RD probably makes all the panels by now.

I sure hope that the news report was wrong and no one was killed!!!!!

Sadly the owner of the coffee shop that exploded was the one fatality. 25 other people including 9 firefighters were injured.
Luckily the gas leak had been detected and they were able to evacuate everyone from the building and surrounding areas before the explosion, so there were no other fatalities. 15 buildings were damaged.
That's a busy area in Durham, a lot of great restaurants on that street.

The cause was some contractors drilling and hitting a 2-inch gas line. They probably didn't call 811 before they started digging.

https://www.wral.com/officials-owner-last-p...actor/18320082/

The gas infrastructure in this country scares the crap out of me. Several years ago, I was about six blocks away when a building on main street in Bozeman blew up, killing the poor woman who flipped on the lights to start her day. Had it happened just 30 minutes later, there would have been many more fatalities. Even from six blocks away, it shook the brick building I was in violently and knocked the power out. Amazing more people weren't hurt.

That contractor is likely soon to be out of business if they did not call and it seems likely they did not and that the gas lines were never marked. Sad for the loss of life, all those injuryed and one person was transported to the UNC Burn Center, a very painful injury, for a long time.

The man killed has been identified. Coffee shop owner Kong Lee was killed when he declined to evacuate and was last seen standing in the doorway of his shop after about 10 people were evacuated from his shop and the fire chief left to find a policeman to force him to honor the evacuation order. This is so sad.

The contractor is also id'ed in the article but it also states that there may have been subcontractors involved as well. I have a feeling this will get ugly.

https://www.apnews.com/d70088b23eed485d934bf1816d9a75d6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue...p;v=ZeRqDVlXurU

Great short film about the collection and the people involved, profiled by eGarage

https://youtu.be/JknN119BIo8

They just released these pics, an insider view.

Yes and an update;

https://roadscholars.com/editors-note-april-2019/

https://roadscholars.com/ingram-collection-...che-collection/