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Damage assessments under way in Exeter
Steve Middaugh and Andrea Gerko talk about the blast that occurred across the street from them, damaging the siding, blowing out an upstairs window and leaving cracks in the walls of their home on Memorial Street.
S. John Wilkin photos/The Times Leader
Steve Middaugh’s home was damaged in a blast that leveled David Lamoreaux’s home at 58 Penn Ave. Saturday. The explosion damaged several other homes and businesses in the area.
EXETER – Steve Middaugh pointed out cracks in the plaster of his home’s staircase and a shattered window caused by an explosion at his neighbor’s home on Saturday.
“I didn’t really expect this,” said Middaugh, 40, whose property at 64 Memorial St. sustained damage in the blast that leveled David Lamoreaux’s home at 58 Penn Ave. The explosion damaged several other homes and businesses in the area.
A State Farm agent told Middaugh that a structural engineer would come out to his house to see if there was any foundation damage.
Middaugh and his girlfriend, Andrea Gerko, 43, filed paperwork with emergency management officials from the state and Luzerne County who conducted a preliminary damage assessment Tuesday on those properties affected by the blast.
The couple did not know if their insurance would cover all the damage.
About 30 people, mostly homeowners, had preliminary assessments of their properties on Tuesday at the borough’s ambulance building on Wyoming Avenue.
Financial assistance in the form of low-interest loans might be offered to affected property owners. The appraisals will determine eligibility for Small Business Administration low-interest loan programs.
County EMA Director Stephen Bekanich said homeowners provided information such as estimated damage and what, if any, insurance they had to cover it.
“What we were looking to do is to see if we would reach a threshold for the loans to help people get back on their feet,” he said.
Bekanich said the threshold that has to be met is 25 homes or businesses with 40 percent uninsured loss to qualify for those loans. It was not known Tuesday night whether that requirement was met.
By today, Bekanich said, he should know whether to forward a request for the SBA loans to the Governor’s Office.
Once the request has been sent, it could take up to two weeks for review.
An estimated 60 homes and businesses in the vicinity of Saturday’s blast had varying degrees of damage, Bekanich said. Most of the affected properties sustained damage ranging from broken windows to more severe structural damage, he said.
Bekanich, who in the past 22 years has seen several other house explosions, two of which were caused by gas leaks, said it is hard to determine the exact dollar damage at this time.
“This is the first time I’ve seen somebody do this on purpose,” he said. “Because of the type of the neighborhood, the houses were a lot closer together, so it had tendency to cause more damage.”
Authorities have stated that they think the explosion was not an accident and are conducting an investigation.
Anybody who was not able to make it to the meeting on Tuesday is urged to stop in at the Exeter Borough Building, Wyoming Avenue and Lincoln Street, to fill necessary paperwork for damage assessment.