Yikes.
The 5:30 news here had an aerial shot with a good view inside. There were a couple of former cars visible and they were clearly trashed - fire and water and stuff smashing down on them. Have no idea if any of the collection survived, but at least some of it is destroyed.
Which is not nearly as important as the two deceased and the folks who have been left injured, of course, it’s just an addendum to the rest of the destruction.
Yikes is right. My heart goes out to all those affected. 
Very close to where this happened is the semi-famous 11foot8.com camera. It’s trained on a very low bridge on the same street where this explosion occurred and chronicles the trucks that hit the bridge. Today it recorded the explosion (about 10 seconds into the video on this page).
Have they said anything about the construction worker?
I have a feeling he was vaporized if he was standing in front of the gas leak.
According to what I heard on the news, the people who worked in the building that blew up were warned that there was a gas leak and that they should get out just a couple minutes before the explosion. No word on who was killed yet.
The building that housed Prescient also had a coffee shop in it. The person who died was the coffee shop owner who didn’t want to leave when the firefighters were clearing people out.
Timeline seems to be:
9:40 am Contractor bores into gas line while installing fiber and gas leak is reported
A bit before 10:00 Firefighters are there telling people to clear the area
Around 10:10 Explosion
According to the NC 811, the contractor did have the proper permits to dig there.
No:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article229114894.html
So the construction worker who drilled into the pipe had 29 minutes to get out of the way. Gas doesn’t explode just because it leaks; it needs a source of ignition.
Frankly it looks like the firefighters were slow in giving the evacuation orders–they didn’t get to the coffee shop until 10:04.
The family of the coffee shop owner released a statement on Facebook today. Very sad - he delayed leaving because he wanted to make sure everything was closed up and he wanted to make a sign to put on the door .
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