The Scores Gentlemen's Club building at 453 Worthington St. has exploded following the report of a natural gas leak.

The building was flattened, and the remains of the club look like a huge cavity in the road. At least two people were injured. Emergency officials set up a command center at Chestnut and Worthington streets. Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray is in Springfield and is consulting with Mayor Domenic Sarno and State Rep. Cheryl Coakley-Rivera. Murray and Sarno were at a tree lighting ceremony at the Quadrangle when the explosion occurred. They are now at the scene.

Image
© Patrick Johnson, The Republican The scene near the Scores building on Worthington St. after it exploded.
Glass littered the streets and sidewalks throughout a multi-block radius from the site of the explosion. Everyone is being evacuated from apartments in the area. A shelter is being set up on Central Street. The Square One day care next door was heavily damaged. A five-story building at Worthington and Chestnut was heavily damaged.

Ambulances are being called in from all available areas. West Springfield Deputy Fire Chief Danny Borsari said his city had two ambulances near Chestnut Street. Agawam sent two ambulances, according to its deputy chief. Chicopee fire officials said units were sent as needed.

At Chestnut and Taylor, a block away, there were blown-out windows on several buildings. All the windows on a two-story building on Chestnut and Taylor, facing Worthington. People in Wilbraham and South Hadley felt the explosion. A number of emergency vehicles have responded.

Dave Cutter, who owns a tattoo parlor at 378 Dwight St., about a block and a half away, said his front windows were blown out, and that the ceiling in his cellar was blown down. There's a large crowd downtown tonight because of the Thanksgiving holiday. At Theodore's, about two blocks away from the blast, the crowd was startled, said Stephanie Simmons, a waitress. "It rocked us so hard the windows smashed. It felt like an earthquake or a large explosion. There was pretty much chaos." She said about 30 to 40 people were at the bar, all on their feet, and many went out side to see what happened.

Image
© Patrick Johnson, The Republican Emergency personal bring a man injured by the Worthington Street explosion on Friday night into an ambulance.
Worthington Street is blocked off at both Dwight and Chestnut streets. Albert Fuster, was in his apartment at the corner of Chestnut and Taylor, a block away, with his two dogs, Moochie and Papi. "All of a sudden I hear the boom and all my windows blow out. All the smoke started filling up the place," Fuster said, standing with a crowd of people after the blast in the parking lot of the Mardi Gras. "I thought someone set off a bomb." He and the dogs were the only ones home at the time. "So I grabbed my babies and got the hell out," he said.

One observer reported five ambulances on the scene. "There is shattered glass everywhere," he said over the sound of a fire alarm. "It looks like a war zone." Megan Labombard, 21, who works as a dancer at the Scores, said her employer gave her about 20 minutes notice to get out of the club where she had been working. "I went across the street to the Mardi Gras Champagne Room, where we were having a drink, and the building where I work blew up," she said. She said she watched her livelihood go up before her eyes.
Image
© David Molnar, The RepublicanA view from Armory Commons of some of the damage to the areas on Worhtington St. after a gas explosion.

Image
Mayor Domenic Sarno came to the location, but was told he had to leave for safety reasons. Debbie, a dancer at Scores who didn't want her last name used, said she was on stage dancing when the "house mom" came up and told everyone to evacuate. She went upstairs and saw smoke. While she was gathering her clothes, the manager came up and told everyone, "I don't care if you're (expletive) naked or not, get out." The manager took them all over to the Mardi Gras diagonally across the street. "I feel lucky we got out," Debbie said. She said all her work clothes were lost.

She said Scores workers had been smelling gas for a while, and the gas company came in during the week to check, but didn't find anything. She said the smell of gas was especially bad this morning, and that she would go upstairs and feel light-headed.

Nestor Torres, of 61 Pearl St., said "The whole place shook, and then the explosion." His son's bedroom window smashed in, but no one was in the room. Other people who lived in the apartment buildings known as Armoury Commons on Pearl Street were cleaning up glass from the outside stairs and reporting that it felt and sounded like a bomb going off.

Various storefronts, ranging from a mini-mart to a church, have smashed windows. Eladio Torres, a part-time worker at J.J. Mini Mart on Pearl Street, said the glass blew in and then blew out of the building as he and others were at the counter. He said it felt like an earthquake. Judith Matt, who lives on Mattoon Street, said she saw something on TV about a gas leak, and suddenly she felt "as if the third floor of the house was falling on the second floor. "I was putting ornaments on the tree and it was absolutely like a bomb went off," said Matt "One of my windows was blown out. The entire house shook like you wouldn't believe. Up and down Pearl Street, all the windows are blown out. You would not believe the damage. "We're all fine on Mattoon Street, but lots of people are going to be displaced tonight."

Daniel Roy of ABC Glass Works was on the scene to help address the thousands of windows damaged by the explosion. A law enforcement helicopter was circling the area. Maribel Rivera was sweeping glass outside the Brothers In Christ Church on Chestnut Street, about two blocks from the site of the explosion, following the blast. Her husband, Angel, is pastor. Maribel said she saw the news of the explosion on TV and saw the church's storefront window blown out. "I was crying, nervous. I could not believe it," she said. She and family members, including children, rushed to the church from the home in the South End.

Sgt. John Delaney, spokesman for Springfield Police Commissioner Wiliiam Fitchet said that a press conference would be held at 8 p.m. at Fire Department headquarters on Springfield. Mayor Dominic Sarno, Police Commissioner Fitchet, acting Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant and officials from the Columbia Gas Company of Massachusetts were expected to be present.

Sixteen people were taken to hospitals with injuries from the explosion eight each at Baystate Medical Center and Mercy Medical Center, and none of the injuries were life-threatening. Two of those injured who were brought to Mercy were firefighters, officials said.

The FIre Department got a call about the smell of gas at the Scores club at 453 Worthington St. at 4:20 p.m. Firefighters were on the scene in four minutes. Forty minutes later. a crew from Columbia Gas of Massachusetts was on the scene, department spokesman Dennis Leger said. "We kind of thought the gas had been turned off. Five minutes later, the building exploded," Leger said.

At 7:30, a fire department bucket truck had extended its aerial platform and firefighters were breaking windows at an apartment building at Worthington and Chestnut streets. Alexis Atkins, 16, of Springfield, was walking down Worthington Street going to meet some friends downtown. Right at the vicinity of Worthington and Spring she saw the explosion "I saw this big explosion out of nowhere. There were flames and glass flying everywhere and people screaming," she said.