Dallas officials said Friday that search efforts had ended at the Oak Cliff apartment building where a gas explosion killed at least three people and injured five others a day earlier, shifting the work from rescue to recovery. Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Justin Ball said everyone is accounted for after crews searched the wreckage with cadaver dogs and drones until 2 a.m. Friday.
The blast hit Thursday afternoon and left one person critically injured, forcing residents and neighbors to absorb the loss as investigators took over the site. The National Transportation Safety Board now leads the investigation, but the cause has not been determined.
That uncertainty hangs over a building with 23 units, 19 of them occupied, where 19 families were affected and 10 families were placed in hotels after their units were destroyed. Kevin Oden said all victims who needed a hotel had been accommodated by 9 p.m. Thursday, and no one else reached out Friday asking for help.
The hard numbers show how fast the explosion spread beyond the blast itself. It killed three people, injured five and displaced families who had to leave with little notice, while Dallas staff worked on longer-term housing and fire officials coordinated with nonprofits to provide home kits for those who lost everything.
What remains unanswered is the one detail that will shape the next phase of the response: what set off the explosion in the first place. Until investigators determine that, the families who were put in hotels and the neighborhood around the damaged building are left waiting for a cause to match the scale of what they saw on Thursday.
