KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A house explosion rocked a Knox County neighborhood Wednesday afternoon, prompting a rush of 911 calls from nearby residents but causing no injuries, officials said.
"It was a huge explosion in the house behind me. It's destroyed and some of it's on fire. It just happened," the first caller told dispatch at 1:03 p.m.
The blast happened in the 1700 block of Blue Water Way near the Choto area, creating a debris field up to 150 yards wide and slightly damaging a nearby home, Rural Metro Fire said.
The dispatcher forwarded the first caller to the fire department. "There was a huge explosion," the caller said. "You could hear, I mean, it shook my house and I went outside and the house was destroyed ... there's debris blown all the way here, across the road, behind the house. I mean, it's—it's bad."
From 1:03 p.m. to 1:06 p.m., dispatch received seven calls.
"A house literally just blew up and it's in flames. It's across the lake from me," the second caller said. The dispatcher mentioned to the caller that they were receiving a lot of calls about the explosion at the time.
"It's unbelievable. It blew up and now there are flames," the caller said. "You've already had a call on it?" The dispatcher told her that "pretty much everybody in the surrounding area" had already called 911.
"I don't know if anyone else has called it in. I just—it's like my entire house shook when it happened," the fourth caller said.
The fifth caller told dispatch there were only four houses on the street. Dispatch asked them if they knew if anyone was inside the house. "I don't have any idea. I'm in my house, which I can see the house, but it's bad," the caller answered.
The sixth caller wasn't a neighbor but was sitting at Cove Park. They told dispatch that they heard a "big explosion noise" and saw "black smoke coming up into the sky."
The next call came in at 1:10 p.m. By then, emergency crews were on their way and familiar with the situation.
In total, Knox County 911 received 12 calls. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.