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No Gas Leaks Found In Homes Destroyed By Monday Explosion, BGE Says

AP PHOTO/JULIO CORTEZ

Baltimore Gas and Electric officials said Tuesday afternoon that the company did not find any gas leaks during an inspection of the site of Monday’s explosion in Northwest Baltimore. An investigation into the precise cause of the explosion remains active.  

The blast killed two people and reduced three rowhomes to rubble. BGE inspected the homes’ gas mains and found data “indicative of some type of issue beyond the BGE meter on customer-owned equipment,” according to the statement.

No leaks were reported at any of the destroyed homes within the last five years, the utility company said. The Reisterstown Station neighborhood’s gas mains and service pipes were last inspected in June and July of last year. They were installed in the early 1960s.  

Local, state and federal investigators were at the scene alongside first responders on Monday,  including officials from Maryland’s Public Service Commission, which regulates utility companies. 

BGE’s parent company is Exelon; it serves more than a million residents in the Baltimore metropolitan area, including parts of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert, Carroll, Harford, and Howard counties.

“We are committed to cooperating fully with the investigators in finding the cause of the explosion,” BGE said in a statement Monday afternoon.

Emily Sullivan is a city hall reporter at WYPR, where she covers all things Baltimore politics. She joined WYPR after reporting for NPR’s national airwaves. There, she was a reporter for NPR’s news desk, business desk and presidential conflicts of interest team. Sullivan won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for an investigation into a Trump golf course's finances alongside members of the Embedded team. She has also won awards from the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her use of sound and feature stories. She has provided news analysis on 1A, The Takeaway, Here & Now and All Things Considered.