LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Some residents are picking up the pieces after a factory explosion in the Clifton neighborhood left them with debris and shattered glass.
The shockwaves felt from the blast at the Givaudan Sense Colour manufacturing plant could be felt for blocks.
Nathan Rush, a Florida investor, was taking photos of a property on Pope Street when the blast happened.
Rush described hearing two large booms and said he’d never heard anything like that before.
“It was loud. It was like a shotgun times 1,000,” he said.
When everything went down, Rush and his crew happened to be outside taking exterior photos. He looked up and saw a puff of white smoke but said it dissipated quickly.
“My mind is like not a third [boom], please. We saw a delivery truck – I was kind of looking at it up the street and his truck rocked. Everybody immediately came out into the street,” he said.
The intensity of the nearby blast caused glass to break on a front door leading into the property.
Just down the road, Clifton Baptist Church also experienced damage.
Jason Deming, pastor of executive leadership, said he was working inside the church when he felt the windows shake.
“[I] immediately knew something was different – [I] ran outside and noticed the windows next door at Quill’s were on the ground,” Deming explained. “I started seeing people come out. It was around that time I started to look back at our building and saw pieces of our window out on the sidewalk as well.”
Deming said he immediately reached out to one of his church members who lives on Payne Street following the blast.
“She’s fine. Her husband has had a lung transplant, so they’re a little freaked out but the fumes,” he said. “She’s like ‘Jason, everybody down here is wearing gas masks, I need to get out of here.’ I was like, get out of there.”
He said his phone began ringing off the hook from concerned parishioners asking about the recently renovated building and if other members who lived nearby were okay.
Despite everything, Deming said the church had reached out to the insurance company about the damage. They are waiting to hear back.
The blast left two people dead and several injured.
Authorities said it will take some time to figure out what caused the blast.