2019 Durham gas explosion

The explosion occurred at a local coffee shop by the name of Kaffeinate. The store was run by shop owner Kong Lee and his family.

At 9:38 am, firefighters responded to a call of a potential gas leak near the Kaffeinate shop. Many witnesses reported the smell of gas prior to the explosion taking place. Durham officials stated that they evacuated eight to ten people from the coffee shop prior to the blast. The leak was reportedly caused by a gas line being breached by contractors with valid work permits.

At 10:07 am, an explosion was reported near downtown Durham.

The damage was widespread, as businesses roughly two blocks away suffered damage although this was mostly limited to shattered windows. Fifteen buildings suffered damage in and around Brightleaf.[6] The coffee shop, Kaffeinate, was reduced to rubble as a result of the blast. An adjacent building holding a Porsche collection was destroyed. An office building directly in front of the coffee shop suffered extensive damage to its interior and exterior. The explosion could be felt several miles away, and a large smoke cloud from the resulting fire could be seen from miles away — this smoke cloud also showed up on weather radar.

The Durham School of the Arts suffered damage to its interior, although no injuries were reported.

Scene of the explosion in March 2020, cleared and fenced off

Passersby rushed to the scene quickly after the explosion, seeking to help the injured, while others helped motorists who were trapped in their cars by inflated airbags. City firefighters soon began arriving to fight a fire triggered by the explosion. Once the blaze was extinguished, a search-and-rescue effort began; it continued until the evening of the following day.

Following an investigation, officials in the Durham Fire Department released a report[9] which determined that a three person crew from Optic Cable Technology digging horizontally to install underground cables breached a 3/4 inch gas line in front of Kaffeinate on the morning of the explosion. Shop owner Kong Lee went outside to complain about the gas smell – the report includes images from a nearby security camera that shows Lee waving his hand in front of his nose as he talked with the crew – but there was no evidence that Lee or anyone from Optic Cable called 911 to report the gas leak. The report was unable to determine what ignited the estimated 46,000 cubic feet of natural gas that leaked out of the ruptured pipe in the roughly 60 minutes from the initial breach to the explosion at 10:06am.[10]