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With the cuts and burns to his face nearly healed, Brian Bittles returned yesterday to the Spalding Rd. house he and his family fled a week before, shoeless and in their bed clothes, as the firestorm at Sunrise Propane roared and exploded behind them.
It was the first time since that terrifying dash for their lives he was allowed to see what remained of the two-storey house the family had called home for the past 14 years.
“I can’t believe we got out of here alive,” Bittles said as he surveyed the damage. “I don’t know if this can ever be fixed.”
With his wife, Lorraine, and their teenage daughters, Tanya and Tara, safely at a hotel they now call home, the 45-year-old City of Toronto employee came to meet the carpenters who would board up the house to protect it from looters and the elements until repairs can be made.
Inspectors had deemed the structure sound, but it looked as if a bomb had exploded inside the house: cracked walls, collapsed ceilings, fallen fixtures, doors ripped from hinges and everything covered in plaster, glass and shredded insulation.
To Bittles, it all looked very hopeless.
In a small aquarium, two goldfish and a toad were still alive and well amid all the rubble of the family room. A week’s supply of food had been put in because the Bittleses had planned to go away on a holiday the day the explosion occurred.
He put in another 10 days worth of food.
The Humane Society rescued the family’s German shepherd pup and one of two cats, but the other cat is still missing. “It’s an inside cat, won’t survive outside,” he figured.
As he scanned the damage in each room, memories were sparked of happier times.
“My daughter played here. There’s her Guitar Hero stuff all covered in crap. We’d watch TV in here. Look at the mess. My wife and I remodeled the kitchen,” he said, shaking his head.
“You’d never know it now.”
As he inspected his littered second-floor bedroom, Bittles gazed out of the broken window at the charred lot across the street. A week earlier, he had stood in the same spot to see what the hissing sound was that woke him up.
Then came the first blast that sent him flying across the room and, in a flash, sent hundreds of his neighbours fleeing.
The events of that night are memories that will stay with Bittles long after the scars are gone and the neighbourhood returns to normal.
“I just hope my girls get over all this,” he said.
“They’re still afraid to come home and I don’t know if I ever want to live here again.”
