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Residents Want Answers As Blast Breaks Windows, Shakes Rosedale Houses

ROSEDALE, Md. (WJZ) -- It's not just businesses, but people's lives still being impacted by the train collision in Rosedale.

Monique Griego explains the blast knocked them off their feet and caused serious damage to homes.

Broken windows and cracks to their houses. Homeowners are dealing with a lot of the same problems, and now they're looking for answers.

Donna Lego's neighborhood is just blocks away from where a train collision in Rosedale ignited a massive explosion.

"It was the big boom and it shook the house. I heard the glass shatter, it blew the door open," she said.

Lego's house seems to have taken the biggest hit. The blast blew out nearly all her outside windows and even cracked her foundation.

Wednesday, she had to call in crews to remove countless shards of glass.

"It was scary, I guess cause it shook the house. It even knocked the dropped ceilings down in the dining room," Lego said.

Many people saw the fire first and came out to videotape it, and that put them even closer to the explosion.

"Yeah, I thought I was going to see Jesus," said Calvin Lego.

Calvin Lego shot video from his backyard, not knowing any second the explosion would occur.

"It like, sucked the air out you know, the oxygen. And I rolled back two or three times and I got behind a tree cause I figured, 'Here comes train parts, wheels or something,'" he said.

After the explosion, thick black smoke covered the entire neighborhood, and soon residents emerged to tell us exactly what they felt.

"My ears actually exploded," a woman said.

"I was in the basement at my computer and I was knocked out of my chair," a man said.

Firefighters put residents on a voluntary evacuation order, but many stayed behind to evaluate their damage, a lot of which couldn't be seen from the outside.

"I have cracks everywhere," a homeowner said.

For now, while neighbors are focused on all their repairs. They also want answers from investigators.

"I would like for them to come down and talk to us to let us know exactly what happened," Donna Lego said.

Residents say one good thing that came out of this was that the community really came together.

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