Bowling Green Public Works Department, Bowling Green Municipal Utilities and Bowling Green Fire Department personnel take readings from a manhole at East 14th Avenue and Nutwood Street on Thursday. The block of Nutwood Street from East 13th to East 15th avenues was evacuated. Photo by Clinton Lewis

… Were going to investigate it and come up with something.

Jason Cherry was sitting outside his 1314 Nutwood St., home around 6 p.m. Thursday when an explosion blew a wooden panel off a home across the street. Cherry said he ran across the street to the home of an uninjured but badly shaken Grace Hughes and shut off the gas to her 1311 Nutwood St. home. I was scared to death, Cherry said. It was just, like a boom. What followed was a small army of emergency response vehicles and an evacuation of at least 50 homes along Nutwood Street and 14th Avenue while workers searched for the explosions cause. A pilot light beneath the floor of Hughes home is believed to have sparked the blast, according to Bowling Green Fire Department Assistant Chief Greg Turner. No injuries were reported during the three-hour evacuation and investigators with Bowling Green Municipal Utilities are still searching for what caused gasoline to enter the sewer system. But were going to investigate it and come up with something, BGMU Manager of Marketing Mark Shults said. BGMU plans to interview businesses in the area to see whether they may have flushed a gasoline-type compound into the sewer system, Shults said. Investigators Thursday spoke with neighbors in the area who said they have periodically noticed a smell of gasoline and natural gas wafting from sanitary sewers in the area, but the odor usually fades, Shults said. When firefighters and utility workers arrived at Hughes home, neighbors were complaining of a gasoline smell and an evacuation of 50 homes in the area was requested as a precautionary measure, Bowling Green police Officer Tom Forte said. Emergency crews gave residents bottled water as they gathered on street corners to speculate about the cause while fighting off boredom and the heat. Hughes daughter, Joyce Gilliam, received a call from a woman on Nutwood Street who told her about the explosion. Hughes, a senior citizen, was home alone when the blast erupted and stayed at Gilliams Cave Mill Road home during the evacuation. Mothers scared to death, Gilliam said. Workers flushed out the sewer system with a compound to dissipate the gasoline and the sewer system was safely cleared before neighbors were allowed to return home, Shults said.