The 151-year-old Level Baptist Church was demolished by an explosion Monday evening. Firefighters indicate that the detonation was caused by a leaking natural gas tank. Nobody was injured but the building is unsalvageable. This disaster has set Level Baptist Church back, but they intend to keep going. Authorities are still investigating the incident.
The explosion rocked the entire area. Firefighters arrived to see the building in flames with a large hole blown into the facade of the building. Carly Hunt, who lives near the Church explained what happened. She described how “I … heard a noise and the whole house shook and I literally thought that something had run into the front of my house.”
Another neighbor had this to say. “It’s kind of startling that something like that could happen and this is a historic church, I mean they’ve been here a long time. All of a sudden we heard this massive sound. It sounded like something had landed on our roof,” he added. “The house, it shook just like an earthquake like someone had set off dynamite.” one of the Church members recalls.
Leo George III, Bedford County Fire Marshal released a statement on what caused the explosion. “Early indications, we’ve had an LP gas explosion at the church. There is quite a bit of structural damage, and due to that, there is a good possibility that the church is going to collapse,” said George. LP stands for ‘liquid petroleum‘ and includes gasses like butane or propane.
He went on to explain that “When something kicked on and ignited, it gave that spark,” George explained. He said fire officials think that an appliance started the blaze. “We are working to get the building secure and stable so we can get in and find out which component of which device was leaking the LP gas. We don’t have any reason to believe it was anything other than an accident.”
Evelyn Read, a longtime member who lives next door to the church, expressed her feelings. “It’s a big hurt because you think of all of the programs that we used to have up there and the fun that we had. It’s a sadness because I think about all of the hard work that went into it and, the different programs we put on to build that church. Our parents and grandparents sacrificed.”
The Pastor of Level Baptist Church was dismayed. “These things happen so seldom, and it’s never happened to us in our history. To get the call that something of this magnitude happened, it made our hearts sad,” said Marcin Wilson. He went on to say “It’s got a rich heritage, and we thank God for it. We intend to rebuild and refocus and to continue to do what God has purposed for the church.”
Wilson went on to ask for prayers. “Right now, we are just asking for the community to pray for us. Of course, we are early in our planning period. We have a meeting scheduled today with our leadership team to just plan our way forward. As we learn what our needs are, we will make it known.” He insisted that once the Church gets back on its feet, they will continue to worship.
Take a look at local coverage of the incident:
Featured image: Screen shot from embedded video.