At 9:38 a.m. on April 10, 2019, city officials in Durham received word that a contractor drilling a downtown sidewalk had accidentally ruptured a 5 cm gas line. Firefighters were evacuating people when a massive gas explosion occurred half an hour later. The blast, which occurred on the city’s 150th birthday, destroyed one building, shattered windows in Duke University’s downtown campus, and caused a huge fire that firefighters spent hours trying to bring under control. A 61-year-old coffee shop owner was killed and 25 people injured, nine of which were Durham firefighters. One of them, …
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