Commerce Residents, Officials Puzzled by Underground Blasts

A series of mysterious underground explosions rattling homes in a Commerce neighborhood has baffled firefighters and others who searched unsuccessfully Saturday for the source of the blasts.

“We’re still investigating it,” said Robert Sepulveda, assistant director of the Los Angeles Public Works Department. “We’re trying to determine what it is so we can take the proper action.”

Authorities remained stumped through Saturday, despite inspections by Southern California Gas Co. and hazardous material teams from the County Fire Department and County Health Department.

‘We Have No Idea’

“We have no idea what caused the explosions,” said Capt. John Kiger of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Firefighters were notified of the explosions along the eastern part of Gage Avenue at about 4 a.m. Saturday, Kiger said. And while the hazardous material team responding to the scene reported hearing the blasts, a two-hour attempt to pinpoint their location proved fruitless, Kiger said.

In March, 1985, 20 people were injured when a methane explosion blew the roof off a clothing store in the Fairfax District about 15 miles east of the Gage Avenue neighborhood. However, speculation that the Commerce blasts may have been caused by pockets of methane gas from a nearby landfill remained unsubstantiated Saturday.

“It’s definitely a possibility,” Kiger said. “Landfills do produce methane gas, but whether this landfill is, I have no idea.”

Gage Avenue resident Dave Stacy, who reported the explosions, said he began hearing muffled blasts about three weeks ago. But, he said, it wasn’t until early last week that they became louder and more frequent, rattling the windows and ceilings in his home enough to cause a china cup to fall from its shelf and shatter. Through Friday night and early Saturday morning, the explosions were occurring about once every 10 minutes, he said.

“It sounds like a mortar going off,” Stacy said. “I mean right in the neighborhood . . . you can feel it through your feet. It gives you a shiver up and down your spine.”

Search for Source

Stacy said he spent the last four nights walking and driving through his neighborhood in an unsuccessful attempt to isolate the explosions that seem to affect only some residents.

“The weird thing is if you go west of my place, they barely hear it,” he said of his neighbors. “But the people east and north of me about 200 yards--we’ve been catching the brunt of it.”

The County Health Department Hazardous Material team is scheduled to resume the investigation Monday, Kiger said.