5/29/2013
By Ivan Pereira
A woman was critically injured after an explosion Wednesdayafternoon in her Howard Beach home, which was previously damaged during Superstorm Sandy.
Firefighters responded to the single-family house at 84th Street around 2:30 p.m. and found an entire wall of the home collapsed, the FDNY said. The fire spread quickly and engulfed the roof, but a team of 106 firefighters got it under control less than an hour later.
The home’s unidentified tenant was taken to Jamaica Hospital with burns and she was listed in critical condition, the FDNY said.
At press time, authorities said they hadn’t determined a cause of the blaze. Buildings Department records show the owners applied for work on the gas line.
The application was part of the city’s Rapid Repairs program, which was created to help homeowners in Sandy-affected areas streamline renovations to their damaged homes.
A source familiar with the probe said the work was done back in January. The Buildings Department said it had crews on the scene to investigate the structure and it will go through its records to determine what happened.
