Latest news with #AshleighTomlin
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Gladstone community details deadly home explosion: ‘Still in shock'
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Red Cross is offering assistance after an explosion on Saturday morning destroyed a home in a Gladstone neighborhood. Authorities confirm that one person who lived there and a dog died. People who live nearby are still in a state of shock. Shawnee Police searching for Jackson Co. Legislator Manny Abarca, son 'My husband and I just fell to the ground. The kids were downstairs. The dogs were terrified. It was just really scary,' next door neighbor Ashleigh Tomlin recalled. 'A little bit of PTSD, I think, just we're still in shock, the loss of our neighbor is just devastating. My husband's known him for 20-plus years.' Tomlin's doorbell camera shows the moment her next-door neighbor's home exploded. 'Our cars are probably not totaled, but they're pretty close, so they're going to tow those off and get us rental cars tomorrow. Then the structural people and the engineers, and USAA, our homeowners insurance, will be out here tomorrow morning,' Tomlin said. A spokesperson for the Red Cross told FOX4 on Sunday, they are working with two impacted neighbors and are in contact with the family of the person who passed. The Red Cross offers assistance for those whose homes were affected in a fire or explosion, such as this, with replacement of medicine, food, clothing and a place to stay. The Red Cross also has disaster mental health workers to assist those affected. Tomlin said a state representative also stopped by the neighborhood Sunday to offer support. 'He came to our door. He works out of Jeff City and represents us. He said if we had any problems, just to give him a call personally, and he would help take care of things. So I can't say enough for the integrity of a man like that to come to your door personally and offer his help,' Tomlin said. She's also thankful for the response from law enforcement and first-responding agencies at the scene on Saturday. 'We just ran out. The police officers were wonderful. They helped me. They went through the house. They got the dogs in their kennels. They helped me carry them. I mean, it was really neat to see the community kind of come together and really help us out,' Tomlin explained. Royals call up No. 1 prospect Jac Caglianone to MLB Gladstone Police did not have any updates to share on Sunday. FOX4 reached out to Spire to inquire about the explosion. A spokesperson for Spire sent the following response: 'While we are cooperating with authorities on their investigation and defer to them on a cause, it is our understanding this was not a natural gas-related incident.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Gladstone neighbors recount huge, deadly home explosion: ‘Thought it was an attack'
Ashleigh Tomlin was in her kitchen Saturday morning with her family when they all heard a massive bang. Her next-door neighbor's house in Gladstone had just exploded. She and her family hit the ground and a ceiling lamp came down, hitting Tomlin on the head and giving her a concussion. They thought a plane had crashed. 'We were just freaking out. I mean, we thought it was an attack,' she said. Firefighters responded just after 11 a.m. to Northeast 74th Terrace and North Main Street Saturday after multiple calls from residents about the explosion that officials later learned had killed one man and one dog. Officials used cadaver dogs to uncover the remains of a deceased adult man. His remains were unidentifiable, so confirmation of his identity may take a while, according to Gladstone Fire Chief Mike Desautels. The Gladstone Fire Department, Gladstone Police Department, ATF and other organizations were on the explosion site Saturday until later that night. The American Red Cross was on the scene, too. Heather Garcia who lives off Northeast 74th Terrace, was still in bed when she heard the loud boom and felt her house shake. She ran outside in search of her husband, Carlos Garcia, whom she knew was outside mowing. 'I came running outside, I don't have any shoes on. I honestly thought maybe a tree had fallen on my house. I came outside and I started screaming for him,' she said. Carlos Garcia was about to head to the front yard at the time of the explosion, but after finding his wife, called his neighbor across the street — who lived next door to the explosion. That neighbor was not home, but her senior black lab, Kipper, was. With her permission, he broke in to save the dog. 'We couldn't even really see the house at first because there was just so much smoke,' Heather Garcia said. All three neighbors knew the elderly man who lived in the home. Carlos Garcia was the one to call the victim's son to tell him what happened, hoping at the time that his neighbor wasn't home. 'It was a pretty traumatic day,' Heather Garcia said. The reverberations from the explosion were felt in the surrounding neighborhoods, too. Abby Bayack, who lives in Parkside Apartments in Gladestone, was with her toddler and thought the explosion was a large earthquake, given how badly it shook her unit. 'It was pretty terrifying when we had no clue what was going on. One of our neighbors said they had things fall off of shelves in their apartment. There was debris flying around outside, and the fire was visible just beyond the tree line behind the apartment complex,' Bayak wrote over social media direct messages. There were several smaller explosion after that and tons of smoke, according to Bayack. In the Sunday mid-morning heat, Heather Garcia and Tomlin were outside cleaning their yards, picking up the seemingly endless bits of broken glass. Carlos Garcia used a blower to clear out the roads with another neighbor as dozens of cars cruised past. The tree in the victim's front yard stood intact, with structural debris, a blanket and a flannel coat still hanging from the branches. Desautels, the Gladstone fire chief, said the investigation into what caused the deadly explosion will likely take some time because of the significant debris it caused.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Watch Ring camera footage of Gladstone home explosion that killed man and dog
A next-door neighbor's Ring camera captured the fatal home explosion in Gladstone that killed a man and dog, leveled the house they were in and caused significant damage to nearby residences on Saturday morning. The cause of the devastating blast is still under investigation as of Sunday afternoon. The investigation has been turned over to the Missouri Fire Marshal of the Missouri Division of Fire Safety. Ashleigh Tomlin, who lives next door, was in her kitchen when she hit the ground. Her security footage captured the explosion. 'We thought a plane hit the house,' she said. 'We were like, what the hell just happened.' The street the explosion occurred on, Northeast 74th Terrace, remains closed to traffic from North Oak Trafficway to Main Street for as crews work to clear debris, according to Gladstone Fire Chief Mike Desautels. According to an Evergy outage map, the explosion caused several customers to lose power in the area. It has since been restored. Desautels said the investigation into what caused the deadly explosion will likely take some time because of the significant debris it caused.
