Explosion rocks Des Plaines apartment building

CHICAGO (FOX 32/Sun-Times) - An explosion ripped apart an apartment building Thursday morning in northwest suburban Des Plaines, but only one person suffered minor injuries.

The possible gas explosion happened in the back of a two-story apartment building a few minutes after 9 a.m. in the 9900 block of Linda Lane in unincorporated Des Plaines.

“I don’t know, I just woke up to the roof on top of my face,” building resident Daisy Roman said. “There was an explosion I guess on the first floor.”

“It is really scary,” she added.

Roman says there was a strong smell of gas. She was one of four people believed inside when the blast occurred.

In the hours after the explosion, much of the effort was focused on bringing in enough lumber to stabilize the building.

NICOR, COM ED and fire investigators will try to determine the cause of the blast. The apartment did have a gas stove, and COMED workers have also been laying underground cable in the condo complex, but not near the building that exploded.

"There's work going on throughout the complex, but  I don't, I couldn't tell you right now if any of it was related," North Maine Fire Protection District Chief Rich Dobrowski said.

He added one person suffered minor injuries.

Clothes and boxes could be seen falling out of a hole in the second floor of the back of the building. A Mercedes SUV with the license plate “LUV CATS” parked behind the building also had its back window blown out by the force of the explosion.

The Red Cross will place residents of the damaged building and two adjacent buildings in hotels, until they can move into temporary housing elsewhere in the Crestwood Complex.