Residents in blast-shaken subdivision want answers

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- His home bears dents and drywall cracks from a deadly weekend explosion, but Barry Chipman says the lingering emotional damage is greater for the Indianapolis neighborhood's residents, still shaken days after the late-night blast.

Chipman and his family showed off some of the damage to their two-story home Thursday as they waited for an inspection by city code enforcement officials. His 16-year-old daughter, Billie, told The Associated Press she's afraid of another explosion.

"We want to know what the hell happened," Barry Chipman said. It's a sentiment shared by many other residents of the Richmond Hill subdivision, and Chipman said emotions ran high earlier this week at a community meeting held at a church that's serving as a relief center.

Investigators are continuing to search for the cause of Saturday night's explosion, which killed two people, leveled two south-side Indianapolis homes and left many others battered and charred. Officials now say they believe it was cause by natural gas and are focusing on gas appliances in the homes at the epicenter.

Chipman's home didn't sustain any major visible damage, but the force of the blast knocked Billie onto the living room floor, where she began screaming for the rest of the family. She said she is scared something like it will happen again.

Fire Capt. Rita Burris said investigators hope to wrap up their work at the scene by the end of the week, although they aren't putting a timeline on determining what caused the blast. Burris said that repairs or demolition can't begin until the investigation is complete.

"The investigation is the investigation," Burris said. "Until they say jump, nobody else can do anything."

Engineers or insurance adjusters have assessed most of the homes, aside from about a dozen that require structural bracing and another 11 near the core of the explosion, of which little remains.

City code enforcement official Adam Collins said his agency hopes to have homes braced by Monday so their residents can return with insurance adjusters to assess damage and determine what's next.

"From there, we're going to start taking a look at what insurance companies are proposing about repairs or demolitions," he said.

Most people, though, have been allowed inside their homes on a careful, limited basis to retrieve necessities, such as toiletries and credit cards, Collins said.

"We never left," Chipman said, adding that he was prepared to resist had he been ordered to evacuate. He said electricity was restored to the middle-class neighborhood the day after the blast.

If all goes well, Burris said, the neighborhood could be back to almost normal in a couple of weeks.

On Thursday, the Marion County coroner's office said it used dental records to positively identify the two people killed in the explosion: 36-year-old Jennifer Longworth and her 34-year-old husband, John Dion Longworth.

The cause of their deaths has not been determined, but they had been presumed dead, as their home was destroyed in Saturday's explosion.

Jennifer Longworth taught second grade at Southwest Elementary School in Greenwood, just south of Indianapolis. Her husband was the director of product development and technology for tech company Indy Audio Labs.

Funeral services are scheduled for Monday at St. Barnabas Catholic Church -- the Indianapolis church where they were married 11 years ago.