Closer to recovery: North Bend returning to normal a year after blast

Published 4:46 pm Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Things are nearly back to normal in North Bend, since the April 25, 2014, explosion in the city. The debris has long ago been cleaned up, businesses have repaired and reopened, ditto for homes, and insurance claims have funded many of the repairs.

A few things will never be the same, such as the Run-A-Muck Café, under renovation when the explosion happened, a young tree on the site now growing at a distinct angle away from the blast, and the city’s Torguson Park.

Directly adjacent to the 500 block of West North Bend Way, “ground zero” for the blast, the park was closed to the public for a day, while city staff checked for damages. They found them in the park’s storage building and restrooms.

“The roof blew off that building, and settled back down,” said North Bend City Administrator Londi Lindell. “While we didn’t have to replace the trusses, they did have to be resecured.”

The park reopened the following day, but the building stayed closed.

At first, it was closed, for inspection, to ensure there was no structural damage or safety problems. Briefly, the building was also a crime scene — some time after the explosion, thieves broke into the building and stole the copper piping.

Today, the building is still closed, in part because the city has plans and grant funding for a new restroom and concessions stand facility more centrally located in the park, and in part because a developer has plans for the blast site.

“We are not going to be re-opening it,” Lindell said. “Because we’ve got someone wanting to start the permit process… we don’t want to build something then tear it out.”

The council is also considering a new pedestrian approach to the park from downtown, which could affect the building as well.

Building tenants

Of the six tenants at the site of the explosion, Point Dance Center and Advanced Tax & Financial Services have relocated to Snoqualmie. Hair stylists Michele Dunbar and Shelley Gildersleeve relocated to other places in North Bend, and the Last Cut East Barbershop posted a farewell message on its Facebook page last August: “Well, it’s gone. Thanks for all your patronage over the years!”

The Run-A-Muck Cafe exists only as a legal entity now. The business was just weeks away from opening when the explosion occurred.

“I was hanging blinds that day, I was that close,” sighs Run-A-Muck Cafe owner Lisa Riley.

Renovations in the future cafe led to the explosion, Riley said. She was emphatic in refusing to lay blame.

“I was born and raised here, and I really want the Valley to know that it was an accident,” she said. “Somebody made a mistake, and a lot of people paid for it.”

A final report on the explosion, published in July, stated the cause was accidental.

Riley detailed the events leading to the explosion: Gas was not running to the building when a subcontractor was working in the kitchen the afternoon of April 24; that contractor turned three valve knobs to open open while measuring the wall for a stainless-steel backsplash for the wall and did not close them again; another subcontractor turned the gas on around 8:30 p.m., at Riley’s request, so she could heat the building to paint inside the next day; the explosion was likely triggered when a mini-refrigerator’s compressor kicked in early the next morning.

Riley lost everything in the explosion, including $70,000 worth of new kitchen equipment that hadn’t been installed yet. She estimated her total loss at close to $200,000,

“It was pretty devastating,” she said. More so because she didn’t have insurance. “My sister raked me over the coals on that one, because she’s a businesswoman,” Riley laughed.

It’s not a mistake she’ll make next time. There will be a next time, with a different name and a different location.

“We’re working on a few things right now,” Riley said, for a restaurant that will be a little more “old school… It’s going to go back to when my grandmother was cooking.”

She gets emotional when talking about the support of her family, partner, and friends, who have helped her through the past year.

“I have a really good support group, I just need to find a place and get going,” she said.

Greater impact

Allyce Andrew/Staff Photo

Red Oak Residence Director Laure Ann Wilbert said repairs needed after the April 25, 2014, explosion are 98 percent complete.

According to a Pacific Northwest Seismic Network blog, a crude  estimate of the magnitude of the explosion, based on sound, was 0.5, but the energy release was likely more powerful because the explosion was above ground.

Chuck Beatty, administrative assistant at the Red Oak senior residence center, said the seismic detector in the natural gas shutoff valve in is home, located a “field” over from the explosion site, shut off the gas. The valve is triggered in a quake of 5.1 or greater magnitude.

Red Oak, located .2 miles from the site, saw significantly more damage. The concussion from the blast blew out 85 windows, detached 165 and moved the building by three inches, which led to drywall damage and cracks. The 17-year-old business was already planning renovations, but the blast expedited the process.

“Every single apartment in this building ended up needing repairs,” Director Laure Anne Wilbert said, “and every single common area.”

As they’re servicing seniors, Wilbert described the repair process as a “slower, but careful and methodical process.” With just a few touch ups left and one common room still closed, repairs are 98 percent finished and she’s still waiting on insurance to come through.

After the explosion, Wilbert said her staff and many community members over the following weeks helped with the cleanup. She said she never raised costs and closed new admissions until Thanksgiving to allow ample time to finish crucial construction work.

Forty-one seniors were living on-site at the time of the blast; 27 were evacuated within 12 hours, and Wilbert said, although she and emergency services had to brush away a few inches of broken glass from some residents, only one man was sent to the hospital, for a four-inch laceration on his arm.

She recalled walking into one woman’s room, the door and windows blown in, and assuming the worst.

“I reached to her shoulder and she was like, ‘Would you close the window, it’s just a little cold in here…’

“We are tremendously grateful for those miracles,” she said.

Courtesy Photo

A view of Red Oak Residence after the blast.

Billy Wendling, North Bend Les Schwab’s assistant manager, said the explosion “wave” lifted the building’s roof and broke some of the trusses and the sprinkler system when it dropped back down, in addition to smashing all the windows.

“We closed down April 25, when it happened,” he explained, “and we reopened the doors on October first. It was a six-month ordeal.”

During repairs, Les Schwab opened a temporary facility in the parking lot; he said he saw a lot of community support in those months.

“I definitely felt it through my customer base. People … would come in and say, ‘Wow, glad you guys are back in business,’ or ‘I’m glad you guys didn’t disappear,’ because a lot of people just expected us to pack up and leave town.”

Since a chunk of Les Schwab’s business comes from I-90 travelers, the shop didn’t lose much money, but Wendling said he was minimally affected. Staff doesn’t get paid commissions, but they do have a profit sharing system, he said, and “for two weeks we didn’t have any sales whatsoever.”

Since the explosion, North Bend has changed emergency protocols to require city staff identification, and to enable employees to push information out to the public on social media channels.

Snoqualmie Police and Eastside Fire & Rescue regularly train staff for emergencies, and officials from both agencies were pleased with how their staff handled the incident and follow-up.

Eastside Fire & Rescue’s blast response included: 68 firefighters, including 2 battalion chiefs, five staff chiefs and a medic; 4 ambulances from EF&R; 13 engines, 7 from EF&R stations, 3 from Bellevue, 1 each from Snoqualmie, Fall City and Snoqualmie Pass; 4 ladder trucks, 2 from EF&R, 1 each from Bellevue and Redmond.

“North Bend’s full of weird things… stuff happens out here all the time.”