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Brooke Walker Reporting There was one very lucky find today after a natural gas leak triggered a e South Weber home to explode last night. That house explosion rocked a quiet Davis County neighborhood just after 6:00 last night. Fortunately, no one was in the home at the time, but all residents in the area were evacuated as a precaution.
Last night, Luana Fowers was out celebrating her 75th birthday. She returned to find her house gone and her dog missing. The only thing she had left was hope. Today that hope came through for her.
To have everything taken, everything gone, at times it's just too overwhelming.
Luana Fowers: “If I think about things like that, I just cry. I think it's over, I'll never see them again.”
You can see from one neighbor's home video, the flames last night were intense, consuming the house and most of the garage. Today, rubble is all that's left of more than 40 years of memories. It's not hard to see why Fowers says it's a miracle she wasn't in the house at the time that it exploded. And today, another miracle.
Sgt. Scott Harper, Davis County Sheriff's Office: “One of the residents found the dog we thought had perished in the home.”
Nine-year old Shadow was in his kennel when the house blew up. The blast threw the black poodle nearly 100 feet. The kennel cracked open on impact and the dog was found nearby just this morning.
Luana Fowers: “He's a miracle dog. I was thrilled to death. I can't believe he's alive, I really can't.”
At this point, Questar has no clue why the natural gas pipe broke -- that's under investigation --but the pavement near the home is raised; authorities aren't sure if that was a cause or an effect. They say it's possible the escaping gas could have forced the road to buckle.
Either way, an explosion like this is extremely rare.
Today, all of the evacuated residents are back at home, everyone but Luana Fowers. Fowers does have insurance, but says many things just can't be replaced.
