A settlement worth approximately $21 million from a civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Green Bay was settled in favor of the family of a Michigan couple killed in the Ellison Bay propane explosion nearly two years ago. The tragedy that took the lives of Patrick and Margaret Higdon on July 10, 2006 moved another step closer to finality with the Federal Court ruling.

According to Stuart Sklar of Fabian, Sklar & King in Farmington Hills, Michigan the plaintiffs in this case were the estates of Patrick and Margaret Higdon, their children James, Patrick and Meghan, Margret’s parents Margery and James Brooks, Margret’s brother Daniel and Cathy Brooks and Margret’s sister Kathy Brooks and Obie Burch. The Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, family was vacationing at the Cedar Grove Resort at the time. Sklar said putting this part of the ordeal behind them was a relief.

Sklar and Ralph Tease of Habush, Habush, and Rottier in Green Bay represented the family. Sklar said the co-council invested a great deal of time and effort in this case.

The family of Patrick and Margaret Higdon has been shown a great deal of respect from the Bloomfield Hills community, according to Sklar.

According to the Associated Press, propane lines for the expansion of the Cedar Grove Resort were installed in 1999. In March 2006, Cedar Grove Resort owners contacted PortSide Construction to upgrade electrical services to the resort docks. When PortSide visited the site in April, propane lines were not identified, nor did a subcontractor for Digger’s Hotline identify them. Two phone lines were identified, but not the buried gas lines.

Arby’s [sic] Construction, a subcontractor for Wisconsin Public Service Corp., dug trenches to install the electric lines July 7 and damaged the buried propane lines, which began leaking into the ground. The Door County district attorney found no evidence for criminal charges.

The Higdons’ suit named those businesses and eight insurance companies as defendants. U.S. District Judge William Griesbach issued his decision Monday.

The three children who watched their Door County vacation cabin burn, knowing their parents were inside and unable to get out, will receive a settlement worth more than $21 million, according to court documents.

The 16-year-old twin boys and 14-year-old daughter of Patrick and Margaret Higdon and adult relatives filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Green Bay claiming negligence caused propane explosions in Ellison Bay in 2006.

The lawsuit names Cedar Grove Resort, some construction companies, a utility and their insurance companies as defendants.

The adult relatives, including Margaret Higdon’s parents and siblings, who were vacationing with the family, have reached a settlement. But that hasn’t been made public.

The family is relieved to have the case settled, said Ralph J. Tease Jr., an attorney with Habush, Habush & Rottier in Green Bay.

The $21 million settlement reached May 6 will be split among the three children — Megan, Patrick and James — and go into trust funds for them.

The couple from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., died early July 10, 2006, while vacationing in a cottage with their children and other family members about 200 miles north of Milwaukee. Twelve other people were injured.

“This family was extremely close, and always looked forward to this family vacation,” court documents said. “On the evening of the explosion, the family had enjoyed their usual routine which consisted of a family meal at a local restaurant followed by family time spent in the rental units talking, playing cards and other activities.”

They were asleep when several explosions rocked the resort about 2:15 a.m., court filings said. Margaret Higdon’s parents James and Margery Brooks and the Higdon’s three children escaped. But Patrick, 49, and his 45-year-old wife were trapped, and Margaret’s voice could be heard calling for help, the documents said.

Megan Higdon, then 12, remained at the scene for 45 minutes after the explosion, in a panic, documents said.

“During that entire time, Megan was forced to watch as the fire consumed the building in which she knew her parents were trapped,” they said.

Two of the children suffered injuries. Megan’s spleen was shattered, and she had burns on the left side of her chest and blistering on her lips. She also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to court documents.

Her brother Patrick, then 14, sustained multiple facial fractures and first and second degree burns over 2 percent of his body. He may have permanent loss of sensation in his left cheek, a doctor said in court records, and he probably won’t be able to ever fully open his mouth.

His twin, James, had no physical injuries, even though he went back into the building to rescue his grandfather. But court documents noted that he was most at risk in the family for developing PTSD or other psychological problems in the near future.

All three children live with their grandparents in Bloomfield Hills, Tease said.

Authorities never filed criminal charges in the matter. Door County District Attorney Ray Pelrine has said an electrical contractor installing some underground electric lines for an upgrade of the resort’s docks ruptured a buried propane line three days before the explosion, and it wasn’t clear what caused the propane to ignite.

The lawsuit claimed Arby Construction severed an underground propane gas line while performing work for the resort. The suit also named the Wisconsin Public Service Corp., Portside Properties, and their insurance companies, and Ferrellgas.

Four of the five defendants in the lawsuit agreed to the settlement. The four will take the fifth defendant to court to try and make it share payment in the settlement, according to court documents.

After the Ellison Bay explosions that devastated the small Northern Door Community, a bill that would make underground propane lines appear on Digger’s Hotline maps could be passed as early as next week. The Joint Committee on Finance approved the Propane Safety Act, sponsored by State Representative Garey Bies and Senator Alan Lasee, this week. The proposal aims to increase safety for both consumers and suppliers of propane gas in Wisconsin. “We have been working hard on this important safety legislation and our work is paying off as the bill is making its way through the process,” said Bies.

One of the two main components of the legislation is establishing new requirements for propane suppliers to meet certain financial responsibility standards in order to be licensed by the state. The new standards are designed to ensure that the propane suppliers operate a safety-conscious business with a well-trained staff and possess the financial backing necessary for commitment to their industry and customers. Senator Lasee explained the importance of this bill.

The second main component of the Propane Safety Act focuses on new communication requirements between propane suppliers and customers as well as changes to the Statewide Communication System, or Digger’s Hotline. The new requirements will work to make sure that propane suppliers and their customers stay on the same page concerning gas lines.

“With close cooperation of everyone who is involved in the propane industry, we have successfully created a package that enhances consumer safety,” stated Lasee. “This legislation represents that package and it has received strong bi-partisan support at each stage of the legislative process.”

Both legislators expressed their hopes that the Assembly and Senate will act quickly on the legislation before the regular session ends in March. Lasee said he hoped this bill would have been passed a year ago. With the importance of the legislation and the bi-partisan support, the authors do not foresee any potential obstacles to final approval by the legislature. From that point, the legislation would then be sent to the Governor for his signature into law.

When the Pioneer Store fell a little less than a year ago, many feared a part of Ellison Bay’s soul was lost forever. It was just a grocery store, but it had carved out a very special place in the hearts of locals and visitors alike over the years.

In fact, so entwined was it with Ellison Bay lore that many speculated the town would die without it, as if the town’s heart had been cut out. Such ruminations were not merely hyperbole, as the store’s absence left a massive hole in Ellison Bay’s routine.

“In a very real sense the Pioneer Store has been, since 1900, the heart of Ellison Bay,” said Pastor Michael Brecke. “The rhythm of Ellison Bay has always been centered on the Pioneer Store.”

Built in 1900 by Charles Ruckert and Hans Hanson, the store had witnessed over a century of peninsula life, while serving as a lifeline to those in Northern Door who depended on its goods. In addition to groceries, the store housed the Post Office from 1903-1915.

So when it was destroyed by the propane explosions that also felled two cottages at the nearby Cedar Grove Resort July 10, 2006, the community took the loss to heart. It was unknown if Carol Newman, who had owned the store since 1968, would even be able to rebuild given current codes and setbacks. Some talked of raising money to help, others of petitioning the town. Newman was less concerned about the store at the time.

“I’m just happy to be alive,” she said. “And I’m really sad about the people killed and injured.”

Newman ultimately chose to rebuild, to the great satisfaction of the Northern Door community. Carlson Contracting, which has a long history with the Newmans, was given the task of recreating the store as similar as possible to the original.

“We’ve been doing work for the Newmans since the 1950s,” said Carl Carlson, the company’s owner. “It’s been an honor and a privilege to help Carol put back her store and to put a piece of our hometown back in place.”

Carlson said he had the Fourth of July in mind when they broke ground on the project and it looks like the store will be ready for the holiday. He said it’s been a great project to be a part of and Newman has been involved every step of the way.

“There’s a lot of support for us and Carol,” he said. “The whole town wants it back and the whole town needs it back.”

Just up the street from the store another historic renovation was recently completed. Michael and Janice Thomas have spent the last year restoring and renovating a home to house the Savory Spoon Cooking School and Marketplace. They bought the building about seven months before the explosions and weren’t sure about completing the renovation in the wake of the disaster.

“Janice asked me ‘Should we go forward? Is Ellison Bay going to make it?’” Michael Thomas recalled. “There were a lot of sleepless nights.”

Their building dates to 1879 and was home to the Ellison Bay school district Number 5 until 1927, where Thomas said Ruckert’s children went to school. Thomas bought the building because of its historic significance and is proud to be a part of the town’s historical resurgence.

“We’re thrilled to have the Pioneer Store back and to be another component to Ellison Bay making a comeback,” he said. “I’m hoping we can create something unique in Ellison Bay. We’re a quaint, laid-back community with some great businesses, basically an artist community.”

Such talk is a far cry from the fears of a year ago, when the future looked dim and a cloud hung over the town. Such optimism speaks to the perseverance of the community, a trait personified by the Pioneer Store.

In an age of supermarkets and technology, the store persevered, providing those little things whose loss is often lamented. Things like a familiar face, a little conversation, and the knowledge that this little piece of your hometown is distinctly yours, not found in the sprawling suburbs or urban centers.

Turns out not time, not competition, not even an explosion could bring an end to it. On July 1 there will be a dedication ceremony for the rebuilt Pioneer Store at 2:30 pm. At Newman’s request it will be kept simple.

For over a century the Pioneer Store was Ellison Bay. July 1, thanks to Carol Newman and a community full of support, it will be once again.

In the spring of 2005 a massive disaster drill was held in Sister Bay involving several Door County and state emergency response departments and agencies.

The drill was funded with Homeland Security dollars and imagined a scenario with multiple explosions at different locations and a gas attack. The United States Coast Guard, Army Reserves, Sheriff’s Department, and several fire departments swarmed downtown Sister Bay. At the time, the picture seemed far-fetched in the quiet community of Northern Door, but little more than a year later the drill became a startlingly similar reality in Ellison Bay.

At about 2:30 am on July 10, 2006, a series of blasts rattled the town – some said two, some three, others swore they heard more. Patrick and Margaret Higdon, parents of three, were killed. Seven others were hospitalized. An underground propane line at Cedar Grove Resort had been severed days prior, leaking gas through the Swiss cheese rock awaiting a spark.

Investigator’s couldn’t conclusively determine what that spark was, but the end result was two people dead, many more injured, three buildings destroyed, and a community in shock.

By the time early risers were taking their first sips of coffee that morning, images of the Pioneer Store in rubble were splashed on the local news screens. One of the oldest symbols of Door County reduced to a single, fragile story, its wares spewed across the highway.

Liberty Grove Town Chairman Charlie Most woke up to the images on his television at about 5:30 am, though he couldn’t immediately tell it was his town on the screen.

“It took a little time to recognize the intersection because it didn’t look much like the Pioneer Store,” Most recalled.

Ann DeMeuse, Door County Emergency Management Director, received a call from the Red Cross in the pre-dawn hours of July 10. By 5 am she was in Ellison Bay coming to grips with the reality of what had happened.

“I needed information on what was real,” she said. “You figure there would be some exaggeration, but there was none. The devastation area surprised me.”

A page alerted Chris Hecht, Chief of the Sister Bay/Liberty Grove Fire Department, to an explosion at about 2:30 am. He knew from the alert it was a large event but was still surprised by the “scope and size of the disaster.”

Hecht and other responders first worked to secure the safety of the people and responders while trying to gain an understanding of how the explosion happened. Responders worked long days in stops and starts as the community speculated on the cause and wondered if more explosions were to come.

The Red Cross stepped up to help relocate people by finding lodging and shelter. Hecht said they were a huge help to his department.

“We could evacuate people from the area, but we lacked the capacity to find them all places to go,” he said. “They also provided food, nourishment, and hydration to our people.”

While workers sifted through the rubble for clues, media from around the state and country swarmed the scene in search of any angle to fill airtime and pages, leaving local agencies to take a crash course in media management.

“It was a pretty steep learning curve with the media for everybody involved,” Hecht said. “We worked together among different agencies to establish what the media briefings should be and make sure we were all on the same page.”

In the height of tourist season, normally placid Door County was pasted on television news, including CNN, home to a tragedy.

DeMeuse, Most and Hecht said the previous year’s drill helped them prepare for the tragedy and the uncertainty that followed.

“It was unusually similar to this event,” DeMeuse said. “It involved the coast guard and mass casualties. That experience helped us through the chaos. It familiarized people with one another and many of the skills and procedures from that day were utilized in Ellison Bay.”

That drill exposed inter-agency communication problems that were much improved by the time of the Ellison Bay explosions. The response required communication and interaction between no less than 13 agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the United States Coast Guard, the state Department of Natural Resources, and the Red Cross as well as local emergency responders.

“It helped significantly on many fronts,” Hecht said. “Communication will never be perfect, but it was a lot better because of things we learned in that drill.”

DeMeuse called communication the biggest challenge she faced. Not only were there an unusual number of agencies involved, but they were scattered among several locations. Citizens were also clamoring for information.

Most of the attention in the days that followed the explosions centered on Carol Newman’s century-old Pioneer Store and what its loss would mean to the town. Many complained the media and officials were overlooking the Higdon family’s loss in favor of a building. DeMeuse said that wasn’t the case.

“One of the largest challenges was the frustration in the community with the media’s focus on the Pioneer Store versus the families who lost loved ones,” she said. “But they don’t realize we’re limited on what we could release about those families. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act prevents us from giving the media much information. It’s there to protect, not slight the families. So the media goes with what information they can get.”

The family subsequently filed a civil suit seeking damages from several companies (see adjacent story).

Most said there were aspects he wishes they had handled better, such as communication and getting the highway open sooner, but on the whole the disaster management impressed him.

“The emergency meeting went well,” he said. “The Town Board distinguished itself. And Ann DeMeuse really did a tremendous job coordinating everything.”

The disaster was hard on responders, and Hecht said he wished he had brought in more mutual aid from other departments to ease the burden on his men and women. The county felt a financial toll and eventually requested $179,000 in reimbursement from the Wisconsin Disaster Fund, meant to aid municipalities and counties when a disaster declaration is made but it doesn’t qualify for federal disaster relief. They received $125,000.

Hecht said the tragedy taught him a lot about his people and the community he serves.

“Our people are fantastic,” he said. “Put in the face of adversity they will step up, but the community stepped up as well. The support we received was absolutely staggering.”

Less than a year later, the Pioneer Store is nearly back and the town is hopeful of a larger resurrection; however, the events of that morning remain in the minds of those who were there.

“A year later you wouldn’t know a disaster ever happened there,” Most said. “But it will always be etched in my memory.”

By Paige Funkhouser
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers • Green Bay Press-Gazette

STURGEON BAY — The Door County district attorney has decided not to file criminal charges against any person or business responsible for the fatal Ellison Bay explosions on July 10.

District Attorney Raymond Pelrine’s decision will not have an effect on the civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the survivors of the couple killed in one explosion, according to an attorney for the family.

Patrick and Margaret Higdon were staying at the Cedar Grove Resort at the time of the explosions and were killed; their three children were injured. The family was on vacation from their home in Michigan.

A statement from Pelrine was released Monday, along with the Door County Sheriff’s Department report of the explosions and the investigation. Pelrine’s statement, dated March 1, outlined the events leading up to the explosions.

Pelrine said on Tuesday that he would not comment beyond the written statement.

Propane lines for the expansion of the Cedar Grove Resort were installed in 1999, but not recorded with any government or utility registry (registration is not required by state or federal law), Pelrine wrote. In March 2006, Cedar Grove Resort owners contacted PortSide Construction to upgrade electrical services to the resort docks. When PortSide visited the site in April, propane lines were not identified, nor were they identified by a subcontractor for Digger’s Hotline. Two phone lines were identified, but not buried gas lines.

Arby’s Construction, a subcontractor for Wisconsin Public Service Corp., dug trenches to install the electric lines July 7 and damaged the buried propane lines, which began leaking into the ground. These severed lines were located July 12 by investigators. The ignition source of the July 10 explosions may never be known, Pelrine wrote.

“I do not believe evidence exists to justify a criminal prosecution of any individual or entity for conduct leading up to the explosions and loss of life at the Cedar Grove Resort on July 10, 2006,” Pelrine wrote. “I find no evidence of any intentional conduct, nor do I find evidence of anything meeting the criminal code definition of first- or second-degree recklessness.”

One of the Higdons’ Michigan attorneys, Stuart Sklar, of Fabian, Sklar & King. P.C., said Tuesday that the decision not to file criminal charges will not affect the civil lawsuit case his practice is building for the children and other family members injured in the explosions.

“The matter will be resolved in the federal district court case that we filed,” Sklar said. “We are confident that the (parties responsible for the explosion) will be held accountable for this tragedy.”

The civil suit filed Sept. 22 claimed negligence by four companies — Cedar Grove Resort Inc., Arby Construction Inc., PortSide Properties Inc., and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. — regarding the severing of the propane pipeline. The suit asks the companies to pay for injuries and damages for the children and other involved family members and for the wrongful deaths of Patrick and Peggy Higdon.

WPS spokesman Kerry Spees said the district attorney’s decision will not affect the utility’s case or preparations for the civil suit, and the company will continue to cooperate with any further investigations.

“This was a tragic circumstance,” Spees said, “but I can’t really comment on the case.”

No criminal charges will be filed in the deadly Ellison Bay Explosion that killed Patrick and Peggy Higdon last July.

See video at Link

March 19, 2007 06:48 PM
By Andrew Fefer

Eight months after a series of deadly explosions in Ellison Bay, the investigation is complete and the Door County district attorney says no criminal charges will be filed.

The propane explosions rocked the small tourist town last year on July 10th. The three explosions happened within blocks of each other.

One blast caused the first floor of the Pioneer General Store to collapse, injuring one person. To the west. A second explosion at the Cedar Grove Resort happened at a building used mostly for storage. The most damage happened northwest of there, at a duplex cottage on the Cedar Grove Resort, where rescue crews found the bodies of two people who died in the explosions.

The report is hundreds of pages long and documents how a construction crew unknowingly severed a propane line at Cedar Grove Resort.

A year ago, the resort wanted an electrical upgrade at their north and south docks.

Within the report are sketches, maps, and documents showing how five different companies, most from Northeast Wisconsin, all failed to map out buried propane lines on the property.

The report goes on to say Arby’s Construction bored its way right through one of the propane lines while digging a trench July 7th.

Propane started leaking into the ground and didn’t stop for three days, fueling the explosions on July 10th.

Investigators found the leak after searching for five days.

The district attorney concludes there was negligence before the explosions but nothing criminal.

“The district attorney didn’t feel there was a high degree of criminal negligence there,” Sheriff Terry Vogel said after the report’s release.

Asked if he agreed, Sheriff Vogel said, “I concur with the D.A.’s decision on that, yes.”

To this day there’s no word on what ignited the propane. Officials say there may never be.

“For the most part we’re– our department is pretty much done with everything here. We are going to be working with this case for several years, working with some of the attorneys on the civil end,” Vogel said.

The report identifies a man who smelled a strong odor two days before the explosions but never reported it.

By Sarah Thomsen

The Door County district attorney says he will not file charges against anyone involved in last July’s propane gas explosion in Ellison Bay that killed two people at the Cedar Grove Resort. A report released Monday by the sheriff’s department details the findings of the investigation, and the D.A. says nothing rises to the level of criminal negligence.

We now know Ferrell Gas installed the propane lines under the resort in the summer of 1999, and no Wisconsin law required the company to document their location.

We also know that on June 26, 2006, Arby’s Construction emailed Diggers Hotline to check for buried utilities before doing electrical work on the resort property. Two phone lines were marked but the buried propane lines weren’t.

And we know on July 7, 2006, Arby’s construction crew unknowingly damaged one of the propane lines, which started leaking into the ground. Three days later, a series of explosions rocked Ellison Bay.

Among the hundreds of pages in the report is an interview with Scott Wesa. He was fishing in the bay two days before the explosion and smelled a strong odor coming from the Cedar Grove Resort area but didn’t realize what it was.

“We were coming into the harbor in the morning, 10 or 11 A.M., and it stunk, it stunk really bad. It smelled like rotten eggs. I thought, well, they’re having all the E. coli problems up there, it’s just some sewage or something that blew in because the wind was blowing in.”

The smell drifting on to the bay was so strong it made Wesa’s eyes water and he became nauseous.

“Then we saw that the contractor was digging right there. We pulled in and saw him scraping away at the dirt or whatnot, and they must have hit the pipe right then.”

Wesa told his brother about it later that day but both disregarded the smell as sewage, having no idea what would happen days later.

“We never thought anything about it, and then we came back that night and the town blew up. Then I felt really bad, because I’m a fireman. I should have known better. I know the smell of gas, so it’s not a good thing,” Wesa said.

Wesa regrets not reporting the smell to authorities but says at the same time he assumed crews would’ve known there were propane lines where they were digging.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner. I’m sorry it didn’t come to mind. I mean, what are you going to do? I thought it was just sewage. I mean, like I said, they had been having so many problems with that up there, and it just came to mind that that was the source of the smell.”

Investigators still don’t know what sparked the propane explosion and say they may never know.

By Andrew Fefer

Door County wants to know where and when propane distribution systems were installed to avoid accidents involving severed lines.

Last July, a propane leak caused a series of explosions that destroyed three buildings in Ellison Bay and left two people dead.

The county hopes to gather propane information so it doesn’t happen again. Just a day after those explosions, the county says, it started working to prevent another tragedy.

Mandatory registration is illegal in Wisconsin, so the county will ask homeowners and propane companies to notify the county where and then they installed their propane systems. The records will go on the county’s web site, so people can look before they dig.

County Administrator Michael Serpe says the database will be the first of its kind in Wisconsin.

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and as in most things involving public safety standards, it is human nature to wait ’til something bad happens to point out that something doesn’t exist.”

The county says at least two homeowners have already shown interest in registering their propane tanks and lines, even though the program won’t start for another 30 to 45 days.

Gary Englebert says he’ll register because of his propane tank that was installed when Englebert built his home eleven years ago.

“I think it’s all for the common good if everybody knows where the lines are. Safety first, that what I’ve always been taught,” he said.

The county plans to run public service announcements and ads to let people know about the program once it starts.

Propane companies we contacted Monday would not comment on the program.

ELLISON BAY, Wis. The owner of the Ellison Bay landmark destroyed in a deadly propane blast last summer plans to rebuild her historic store and open it by the first anniversary of the explosion.

Carol Newman says blueprints have been drawn for a new Pioneer Grocery Store on Highway 42. The old one was lost in last July’s explosions that also rocked a cottage at the nearby Cedar Grove Resort, killing a Michigan couple and injuring their children.

Newman was asleep in the apartment above her store, but escaped serious injury.

She’s working closely with her contractors to make sure the new store looks a lot like the old one. Grounbreaking is expected this spring.

Meanwhile, new vacation units at the Cedar Grove Resort should be complete by spring.

The chairman of the DC board has some strong praise for those who responded to the recent explosion in Ellison Bay. While reflecting on the tragedy, Charlie Most was amazed at the compassionate response from all volunteers, business owners, various departments, and agencies. The original response and continuous support from the Sister Bay Liberty Grove Fire Department by Chief Chris Hecht and his crew went above and beyond expectations, according to Most. The Door County Sheriff’s Department and The State Troopers provided much needed security and assistance in controlling the scene. Most said the response from Door County citizens was completely unexpected.

Locally, American Red Cross provided housing for everyone that was displaced and provided meals for all of the crews working on the scene throughout the evacuations. Most said EMS, Community Programs, Social Services, Department of Health, and the Door County Sanitarians Department were also extremely helpful. He talked about some of the bigger groups that assisted on the scene.

In talking with state and federal agencies, Most received a lot of praise for the way the county handled the situation. The County Board Chair said a few years ago it would have been impossible for local departments to respond in such an efficient matter. The construction of two new fire stations in Sister Bay and Ellison Bay and the donation of a command vehicle paid off, according to Most.

He hopes the tourism industry will not be affected by the sequence of events that took place on the morning of July 10. The County Board will look into adjusting ordinances to make sure power, propane, and natural gas lines are identified by anyone digging throughout the county. Most said state law does not require Diggers Hotline to be notified when propane lines are installed.

The Cedar Grove Resort and The Pioneer Store properties remain completely fenced in and a few insurance investigators are still conducting some tests. Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel said all of his department’s investigators have completed their work on the scene and they are now doing some follow up with documents and putting together statements. The report will be completed by the investigators and then forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office. He said the explosion site is being treated as a crime scene in the fact that the area is cordoned off so only the proper authorities are allowed into the area. The Door County Sheriff described what is happening with the paper work.

Door County District Attorney Ray Pelrine was in Ellison Bay twice to take a look at the scene, according to Vogel. Pelrine has not seen the reports or made any determinations and Vogel says it is ultimately the District Attorney’s decision if he wants to look deeper into gross negligence possibilities. Vogel described what would have happened if that were the case.

Vogel said there were two other minor explosions that occurred to cabins on the Cedar Grove Resort property besides the three investigators originally indicated. Explosions were identified at the building that blew up and burned at the North end of Cedar Grove, the structure referred to as the maintenance building, and the Pioneer store. Vogel said the two explosions that were identified later were very small and did not cause any structural damage.

ELLISON BAY, Wis. — The Door County Sheriff said it was five blasts, not three, that rocked a resort town earlier this month and investigators haven’t ruled out a criminal act as the cause.

Sheriff Terry Vogel also said this week that 12 people were injured, besides the Michigan couple that was killed, when the blasts rocked the resort town of Ellison Bay on July 10.

Authorities had remained tightlipped while investigating the explosions but this week revealed more information now that the physical part of the investigation is over.

Vogel said though early reports dismissed the idea that the explosions had been intentionally set off, investigators are leaving open the possibility of criminal culpability.

“There’s a number of options for crime, which can be a malicious act or a great degree of negligence,” he said. “Those things have to be determined yet, and it’s going to be weeks or months before the district attorney makes a determination.”

Vogel had held a handful of news conferences in the days following the explosions but he kept them short and released limited information. That was because his department was treating the disaster scene as a crime scene, he said.

Had police released too much information earlier, that might have influenced the answers of people being questioned in the case, he said.

The series of blasts, which occurred in the early morning of July 10, destroyed a the 136-year-old Pioneer Store and two buildings within the complex known as the Cedar Grove Resort. Two other buildings nearby sustained minor damage from smaller, separate blasts, Vogel said.

Killed in the explosions were Patrick M. Higdon, 49, and Margaret Brooks Higdon, 45, of Bloomfield, Hills, Mich. They were staying in a duplex while on vacation with other family members, including three children, two of whom were seriously injured, authorities said. Margaret Higdon’s parents were also injured. A total of 11 people staying in the duplex were injured, including Carol Newman, 68, the owner of the Pioneer Store, the town’s only grocery store.

The air of secrecy had frustrated some members of the media, especially on July 15 when Gov. Jim Doyle toured the disaster scene. A TV cameraman was thrown out of the tour when he violated sheriff’s department orders to point his camera only at Doyle.

Vogel declined to comment on that incident.

He also declined to confirm what other officials have reported, that the leak was from propane. Vogel said investigators feel fairly confident they know what the leak was. But he said they are still looking into what might have ignited the fuel to cause the explosions.

Insurance companies representing property owners and the injured are taking over the investigation of the disaster scene on behalf of their private interests.

The official probe will shift its focus to interviewing people who were sleeping in nearby cabins and condominiums at the time but have since returned to their homes in various parts of the country, Vogel said, noting that could take one to two months.

Investigators will also examine documents describing utility work and other activities going on in the area prior to the explosions. Vogel wouldn’t elaborate, but other officials suggested earlier that a subcontractor running electricity conduit under a local road pierced a propane line.

Vogel said investigators also plan to consult with a geologist to see whether the cracked limestone bedrock and shallow soil of the area played a role. Some experts already said the geological structure might have conveyed leaking propane to areas far from the severed pipe, which would have contributed to the leapfrog nature of the explosions.

by Karen Klement

Last week was a very emotional time for many people both in Ellison Bay and across the nation. Lives were lost and historic landmarks are gone but the Ellison Bay community is pulling together to get things back to normal. Owner of the Turtle Ridge Gallery Mary Ellen Sisulak says while some may be grieving the loss of lives, Ellison Bay residents are also grieving the loss of their beloved Pioneer Store. Although this small community has suffered during the last few days, Sisulak hopes people will realize that today’s Ellison Bay is the same place that everyone knows and loves. She hopes last week’s accident will not scare people away from this safe and beautiful place.

Many people took an emotional hit from last week’s tragedy. While the explosions took the lives of a Michigan couple, the accident also robbed Ellison Bay of their beloved Pioneer Store. Many were very sad about the loss and hope a new one will be constructed. Sisulak says about 150 people were displaced during the evacuation periods last week and many remained in the Ellison Bay area, bunking with friends and family. Sisulak says many doors were open in the community last week and the neighborhood has really pulled together.

Sisluka says she plans on being more involved in town meetings now and the rebuild of Ellison Bay. As far as business in the area, she says the word is spreading that things are getting back to normal in northern Door County. Sisulak hopes people will continue to visit Ellison Bay and enjoy the shops, galleries and natural beauty.

by Nick Freimuth

All of the businesses surrounding the explosion site in Ellison Bay are now open, traffic is flowing through the village on Highway 42, and the Pioneer Store has been demolished. Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel said a lot of travelers are stopping to take pictures and ask questions. He asks that people do not interrupt traffic by slowing down. Reserve officers are still at the scene regulating traffic flow and making sure no one tries to enter the fenced off area.

The Door County Sheriff’s Department along with a number of other agencies spent a tremendous amount of time directing traffic and assisting with evacuations throughout the disaster relief effort. A lot of overtime was worked and there are many wondering what this will do to the budget concerns. Vogel is hoping that the state will assist the agencies that were involved in the tragedy.

The Sheriff’s Department has been working with representatives on the County Board and Vogel believes they realize the enormity of the situation. The Sheriff said he would try to work within their budget and do the best job he can in dealing with overtime pay and other unbudgeted costs. The budget concerns are not viewed as an issue, according to Vogel. He said with the loss of two lives, 12 injuries, and an evacuation of an entire village this was an enormous undertaking.

Cedar Grove Resort and The Pioneer Store are still completely fenced in. The Sheriff is extremely pleased with the all first responders, fire fighters, police officers, and emergency medical responders. Terry Vogel said this county has done the best job possible considering the circumstances. He believes the most gratifying thing is that once the initial explosion occurred there were no further injuries.

ELLISON BAY, Wis. The grocery store heavily damaged in the fatal explosion last week in Ellison Bay will be torn down tomorrow.

Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel said today the demolition could take a day and a half, then the main thoroughfare, Highway 42, may reopen.

The highway near the site where three building exploded has been closed since July tenth.

Patrick Higdon and Margaret Brooks Higdon died when their cottage at Cedar Grove Resort exploded and caught fire.

Investigators determined that a severed liquid propane pipeline was to blame for the explosion.

About a half dozen people remain evacuated.

By Paul Srubas, Green Bay Press Gazette

ELLISON BAY — Its comparative quietness traditionally has set Ellison Bay apart from many other Door County communities.

Although every bit a bustling resort town, it typically doesn’t experience the crush of tourist traffic that you’d find on a July day in some of the more southern communities along Wisconsin 42, the western shoreline forming the inside edge of the “thumb” of the Door County peninsula.

“We’ve been coming here for 36 years,” said Alfred Hantke of Menomonee Falls. “We like Ellison Bay because it’s quieter than Fish Creek and the others.”

But since propane gas explosions destroyed three buildings, killed two people and injured several others in the heart of Ellison Bay early Monday morning, the community is finding itself more “set apart” from its neighbors than ever before.

Wooden barricades and a spider web of police caution tape segregated the community’s downtown district all week as police, fire and now insurance investigators probe for a cause and source of the blasts. The happy parade of pedestrian tourists that slow traffic in places like Fish Creek or even nearby Sister Bay is nonexistent in downtown Ellison Bay, which appears to be abandoned except for the array of public safety and heavy equipment operators that have been working the accident scene. The most bustling part of town has been the sheriff’s department command center, a trailer equipped with a satellite dish, fax machines and other gear, parked at the corner of Wisconsin 42 and Mink River Basin Road.

Drivers can’t use Wisconsin 42 through the downtown, so businesses have been closed. Residents weren’t able to get to their homes for much of the week. People like Alfred and Gisalla Hantke haven’t been able to get to their boats, moored in public and private slips west of the blast zone.

Retail shops and restaurants trapped within the boundaries of the police barricades obviously have suffered loss of business. But oddly, so have those just outside the police boundaries.

Clay Bay Pottery is too far south to have been affected directly by the explosions or by the worries of lingering propane gas that kept much of the downtown in a stranglehold all week. But that business and several others have been hurt instead by media coverage and by a traffic detour that takes motorists around the affected downtown area and back onto 42 at a point north of Ellison Bay. Tourists apparently have been avoiding the whole area.

Although July is Door County’s busiest month, traffic in front of the pottery shop has been more typical of April, according to Clay Bay owner David Aurelius.

“We’d probably be seeing three to four times as much traffic out here” if not for the explosions and road blockage, he said.

The story is much the same north of the police barricades, north all the way into Gills Rock at the tip of the Door peninsula.

“It’s been pretty quiet up here all week,” said Lynn Hass, owner of Hedgehog Gifts in Gills Rock. “We should be at our peak right now. I’d say we’re down at least 30 percent — but that’s just a guess. People see the road is closed and they turn around and go home.”

Perception is almost entirely the problem, said Larry “Thor” Thoreson, owner of Gills Rock Stoneware. Despite its name, the shop is in northern Ellison Bay and, in fact, finds itself rather conveniently located right at the spot where the designated detour rejoins Wisconsin 42. But business has been slow, Thoreson said.

“The first couple days after the explosions, a lot of people were coming in, but there has been so much information out about all the stores being closed, and the highway, it’s been sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“The last few days have been very quiet.”

He and other businesses have banded together to publicize that their stores remain open. They’ve posted information at the detour routes. It remained to be seen what impact the postings would have.

It’s especially tough on businesses that are open only seasonally, because a few days’ loss represents a large percentage of a business’s total take, Thoreson said.

Consider the Linden Gallery, which, in the heart of the downtown district, was entirely cut off from business all week until Friday, when the barricaded area was reduced slightly. The high-end operation, which attracts national attention because of its specialty of ancient Asian artifacts, can average $4,000 a day in sales, said co-owner Brian Linden. The four days of its forced closure thus would mean a loss of $16,000, he said.

Despite the obvious hardships, business owners were largely upbeat.

Jeanee Linden, the other owner of the Linden Gallery, said the disaster has unified the community in a new and powerful way. She likened the effect to the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center; the adversity has strengthened people’s ties, she said.

“I just want everybody to remain positive like that,” she said.

“Maybe it’s not really lost business — just postponed,” Brian Linden added. “We’re dealing with 2,000-year-old ceramics … if it doesn’t sell, it only grows in value, and suddenly it’s 2,001 years old.”

At Clay Bay, where the ceramics were considerably less old, the pottery wheels have been spinning busily all week.

“Who knows?” Aurelius said. “Maybe more people will come in fall or August …When people do come in, the show room’s going to look great.”

Thoreson summed up what many of the business owners have been saying.

“I’m not complaining,” he said. “In light of what happened here, it’s pretty much small potatoes. And I think that’s pretty true of everybody in town. They’re shocked by what happened, very much thinking about the families that were affected, particularly (the family of the Michigan couple that were killed in one explosion).

“As inconvenient as it all is, we’ll be just fine.”

Original Article & related links here.

…The propane line was capped to keep it from leaking any more gas; crews on the scene worked Thursday to ventilate lingering propane pockets in the ground.

Gas levels were still being monitored Friday by emergency service crews within the cordoned-off area. Homeowners and most business owners were allowed back into their buildings Friday, with the exception of The Viking Grill, Caxton Bookstore and the Marathon gas station.

Visitors and local traffic can access the downtown Ellison Bay businesses on the highway up to the Mink River Basin Supper Club or on Mink River Basin Road.

A short detour around Ellison Bay has been set up by the Door County Sheriff’s Department and allows vehicles to safely navigate around the closed section of State 42. The approximately three-mile detour, which allows traffic to continue on to Gills Rock and Washington Island on State 42 north of Ellison Bay, will remain in place until county officials are able to reopen the short stretch that is closed in downtown Ellison Bay.

Saturday was the first time Governor Doyle saw the destruction of Monday’s explosions in Ellison Bay.

Two people were killed and several were injured.

The governor says he’s is ready to lend the state’s helping hand.

After arriving in Ellison Bay, the governor met with Carol Newman, the owner of the Pioneer Store.

Ellison Bay’s only grocery store was one of the three buildings damaged in Monday’s explosions.

Along with the Door County Sheriff, local firefighters and other volunteers, Governor Doyle toured the blast zone.

While he said the destruction was almost unbelieveable the governor didn’t have the victims of this tragedy far from his mind.

“The property damage will be rebuilt and we’ll work through to get all of that done but we really really are thinking and praying for the family of those who have died and those who were injured,” said Governor Doyle.

Because the Ellison Bay explosions weren’t natural disasters the governor wasn’t able to bring immediate help.

Instead, he promised to aid the victims as well as the businesses in the community anyway he can.

He said “There are great programs from the department of commerce that can help people get back on track. There are ways we can help facilitate businesses working through the small business administration to get fund to get businesses back and going.”

As the investigation wraps up, the sheriff’s department will start to add things up and put a pricetag on their response. That’s when the sheriff says they’ll look to the governor for help.

Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel said “This was devastating for the community, but it was also devastated a lot of departments here budget-wise, personnel-wise and we’ll see what happens and I’ve got faith in him and he said if we need his help we should get ahold of him, we’ll be doing that.”

(AP) ELLISON BAY, Wis. The business community in Ellison Bay is even more isolated after propane gas explosions killed two people and injured several more earlier this week.

Business officials think tourists apparently have been avoiding the area all together, even though many are not barricaded off by investigators.

It’s caused a ripple effect to Gills Rock.

Lynn Hass — owner of Hedgehog Gifts in Gills Rock — says she should be at her peak right now but instead is down about 30 percent.

Instead, in her words — “People see the road is closed and they turn around and go home.”

Brian Linden, a co-owner of Linden Gallery, says they’ll make it through the hardships.

Linden says he doesn’t believe it’s really “lost business.”

Instead, he says it’s “just postponed.”

Liberty Grove town supervisors met Friday afternoon with town attorney Jack Bruce and an insurance investigator for the Cedar Grove Resort, Mark Harrison of General Casualty Insurance, to discuss and approve razing the Pioneer Store.

The town also plans to install a perimeter fence around the Cedar Grove Resort properties to maintain the integrity of the explosion sites for insurance investigations. Harrison said his job is to represent the Cedar Grove Resort and its owners, the Harold Smith family, to coordinate the insurance investigators’ efforts, establish damages and reach a settlement with the party that severed the gas pipe.

Bruce told the board that the Pioneer Store was deemed unsafe for habitation and razing the building would be the next appropriate step. The insurance companies and store owner Carol Newman would be responsible for the costs associated with the demolition. Town Chairman Charlie Most agreed with Bruce.

“We have to consider how best to maintain the Cedar Grove (explosion) site,” Most said. “The town has an interest in removing a public hazard and nuisance. We’ll also help Carol (Newman) remove the materials she’d like to remove.”

Removing the building would eliminate the traffic jam Most said he could envision.

“The possibility of opening State 42 is not in the town’s best interest” this weekend, Most said, “with the gapers’ block it would cause. And I would hate to see any looting of the store.”

Demolition of the store is tentatively scheduled to start Tuesday, for completion Wednesday afternoon. If the work can be done on that timeline, State 42 could open to the public Wednesday evening. No cost estimates for the demolition were reported Friday.

To keep the integrity of the explosion sites, Harrison requested and received the permission of the town to install a 6-foot-high chain-link perimeter fence around the Cedar Grove properties, north of Wills Park to the southwest corner of Cedar Branch Road and down to the shore. Cedar Shore Road would be blocked off entirely, except for authorized access.

Property owners who live on Cedar Branch Road would retain access to their homes. The 40 boat owners with slips and boats at the town dock near the Cedar Grove Resort would have limited access to their boats for the next two to three weeks.

This fence could remain in place for up to six weeks, Harrison said. In addition to the fencing, General Casualty Insurance would pay to staff security officers at each end of Cedar Shore Road.

ELLISON BAY — Efforts by local politicians to secure funding for the Ellison Bay disaster brought Gov. Jim Doyle to this unincorporated hamlet Saturday morning for a tour of the explosion sites. His delay to the disaster site was because of a busy schedule — meeting with soldiers in Mississippi en route to Iraq Friday — and to give time for local investigators to finish their work, Doyle told reporters.

“Everybody is clearly aware of the tourism season, and they’re working to get the businesses open,” Doyle said. “But their first concern is safety.”

Local business owners and residents turned out to shake hands with the governor; he also made rounds to thank the emergency responders and American Red Cross volunteers on scene. Doyle met with Pioneer Store owner Carol Newman to hear her story of escaping from the building and commiserate her loss.

“This place has a lot of memories for a lot of people,” Newman told Doyle. “We used to haul ice to all of the cottages around here.”

“I feel like I knew this place,” Doyle told Newman, “I’ve been by here so many times. Who would’ve ever thought something like this would happen in Ellison Bay?”

Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, and Sen. Alan Lasee, R-Rockland, said they collectively sent a letter to Doyle, requesting that he visit Ellison Bay.

“This was a good step in getting the state’s help,” Bies said.

Funds are available for Liberty Grove to assist the town in paying for unbudgeted items such as overtime pay for personnel in the Door County Sheriff’s Department and the Sister Bay/Liberty Grove Fire Department. There’s also a possibility the town could apply for grants from the Department of Commerce to aid local businesses in costs not covered by insurance.

Lasee said he couldn’t speculate about how much the town or business owners would get from the state.

“It’s a tough call, as the state’s not in the habit of handing out money to businesses,” Lasee said.

Emergency response from the local firefighters, emergency medical technicians and police officers to the disaster happened exactly as it should have, Bies said, who worked 30 years with the Door County Sheriff’s Department.

“They did everything we planned for, for the years while I was in the department,” he said.

Original Article with photo.

ELLISON BAY, Wis. – The tiny resort town that forms the inside edge of the “thumb” of the Door County peninsula doesn’t experience the same tourist traffic elsewhere in the area.

Now the business community is even more isolated after propane gas explosions killed two people and injured several more last Monday.

Investigators are continuing to look for the cause and source of the blast, and drivers can’t use the closed road that winds through downtown.

But Gov. Jim Doyle toured the site on Saturday and said the state was ready to lend a hand.

“The property damage will be rebuilt and we’ll work through to get all of that done but we really, really are thinking and praying for the family of those who have died and those who were injured,” Doyle said.

Since the explosions weren’t a natural disaster, the governor couldn’t bring immediate help. He still promised aid to the businesses in the community.

“There are great programs from the Department of Commerce that can help people get back on track,” Doyle said. “There are ways we can help facilitate businesses working through the Small Business Administration to get funds to get businesses back and going.”

Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel said they’ll also need the governor to help offset the cost of the investigation.

“This was devastating for the community, but it was also devastated a lot of departments here budget-wise, personnel-wise,” Vogel said. “I’ve got faith in him and he said if we need his help we should get a hold of him. We’ll be doing that.”

Meanwhile, tourists apparently have been avoiding the whole area, as businesses outside of the barricaded sites have seen a steep drop in sales.

“We’d probably be seeing three to four times as much traffic out here” if not for the explosions and road blockage, said Clay Bay Pottery owner David Aurelius.

North of the police barricades, Gills Rock business owners are struggling, too.

“It’s been pretty quiet up here all week,” said Lynn Hass, owner of Hedgehog Gifts in Gills Rock. “We should be at our peak right now. I’d say we’re down at least 30 percent but that’s just a guess. People see the road is closed and they turn around and go home.”

Larry Thoreson, owner of Gills Rock Stoneware in northern Ellison Bay said there was initial spike in traffic. Now, it’s sparse.

“The first couple days after the explosions, a lot of people were coming in, but there has been so much information out about all the stores being closed, and the highway, it’s been sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “The last few days have been very quiet.”

Brian Linden, a co-owner of Linden Gallery, said they’ll make it through the hardships.

“It’s not really lost business, just postponed,” Linden said. “We’re dealing with 2,000-year-old ceramics. If it doesn’t sell, it only grows in value, and suddenly it’s 2,001 years old.”

By Kelly McBride, Green Bay Press Gazette

After the initial shock of the explosion Monday in Ellison Bay, Denise Noble had an unsettling realization.

“If it had been a week later, that would’ve been our cabin,” the Waupaca woman said. “I called my sister. She didn’t believe me, so she got online. … (She said) did you know that was your duplex — where you guys stayed?”

For 12 consecutive years, the Nobles had vacationed at the Cedar Grove Resort complex — same week each year, same duplex every time. They were scheduled to arrive there Saturday until they heard the news that two people were dead and the area devastated by at least one explosion early Monday.

Remembering the area as it once was and reflecting on Monday’s events came naturally Tuesday for the Nobles and others with ties to the area. There was shock, sympathy for those who died and nostalgia for what the small community has been.

“When I saw (photos of) the store (sign) laying on the street, I almost cried,” said 62-year-old Janet Grasse Porath, who grew up on a rural Ellison Bay farm. “I could never imagine that something like that would happen.”

Porath, now a resident of Oregon, Wis., knew the tiny community before it was a resort town. She recalls fondly the destroyed Pioneer Store, remembering the days when the 136-year-old building was called Ruckert’s Store.

“They had little stools that you sat on while the storekeeper got your food, got your canned goods,” Porath said in a phone interview. “And, you know, that’s all gone. It was just filled with antiques, lots of original antiques. … It had a long counter. It had a potbellied stove.”

Even after Porath moved to Madison, she’d continue to spend summers during high school in Ellison Bay, she said. With family still in the area, Monday’s explosion hit close to home.

“It’s very devastating,” she said. “I cannot believe that the little town where I grew up and (was) born and raised has been damaged to the extent that it’s been damaged.”

For the Noble family — Denise, husband, Ken, and their three children — vacationing at Cedar Grove had become a much-anticipated yearly event.

Hearing about the explosions Monday, Denise Noble had a hard time grasping what had happened.

“Shock,” she said. “Like, no, that’s the resort we go to. It can’t be happening in Door County … not something like that. My heart goes out to the families (of those) that died.”

Reuniting at Cedar Grove had become a tradition not only for the Nobles, but also for the families they met from all over the country, Noble said. Each year was something of a reunion for them and their children.

“We would have a potluck, depending on if anybody caught any salmon,” she said. “The last couple years have been really good.”

And in spite of the devastation in the area, the family wants to be in Ellison Bay. They’ve changed their vacation plans and hope to stay at Ellison Bay’s Wagon Trail Resort for this year’s getaway.

“It’ll be another memory,” Noble said. “Just a little bit different.”

Original article.

Anyone wishing to donate to the Ellison Bay disaster or to the American Red Cross can send donations to the American Red Cross, Lakeland Chapter. Make out a check and send it to the American Red Cross, Lakeland Chapter at P.O. Box 8295, Green Bay, WI 54308-8295.

ELLISON BAY — Emergency response from the American Red Cross to the Ellison Bay explosions rivaled that of the Egg Harbor tornado in 1996, said Judy Gregory, emergency services director of the Lakeland Chapter.

“Those first 12 hours are so intense that it’s hard to take a step back and take an overview of the situation,” Gregory said Friday.

“After we determine how long the situation is going to go on, we can prepare for that.”

As of Friday, the Red Cross had 20 active volunteers and staff members in downtown Ellison Bay manning their emergency response vehicle, acting as a contact point for residents and business owners to address any needs they had and keeping the emergency crews fed and watered.

“We’ve been feeding 150 people three times a day,” Gregory said. “We’re still in a volatile, changing situation, so we can’t get into recovery mode, yet. As a chapter, we have to be prepared to maintain on our own for three days.”

Recovery mode, Gregory explained, is when families know they can get back into their homes and the need for 150 emergency workers has ceased.

“We pull out when the needs of the community can be handled back in our satellite office in Sturgeon Bay,” Gregory said.

The Red Cross emergency response process started at 3 a.m. Monday with Gregory verifying the situation after receiving a call from one of her volunteers, who is also a first responder in the town of Sevastopol.

“I call my lead person to notify them of a serious situation and to start getting people activated,” Gregory explained, “then I call our executive director.

“We set up a gathering place for people to meet. This time, we gathered at the (Ellison Bay) firehouse. We had family service workers, mental health professionals there. We gathered lists of available hotel rooms, gathered supplies to support the people we had. And we brought in food and water for those emergency workers who’d arrived on scene.”

The volunteers’ efforts continued through the next four days, as volunteers from surrounding chapters arrived to provide relief and food and water.

Local restaurants and stores also supplemented the Red Cross’ food and drink supplies, Gregory said.

The difference between the Ellison Bay explosions and the Egg Harbor tornado, Gregory explained, was the uncertainty.

“This wasn’t like the tornado that came and was over,” Gregory said. “We couldn’t identify until (Thursday) what the source of the disaster was. That’s hard for planning. ”

Financial donations are needed more than anything, Gregory said, and can help with the Ellison Bay disaster and any future emergencies.

ELLISON BAY — Wisconsin 42 will remain closed this weekend as investigators continue to monitor gas levels after explosions Monday that killed a Michigan couple and injured seven people.

Demolition of the historic Pioneer Store, one of three buildings at the Cedar Grove Resort that were destroyed when gas ignited around 2:30 a.m. Monday, still is needed before the highway can open, officials say. Investigators blamed the explosions on propane after finding a severed gas line.

“The possibility of opening State 42 is not in the town’s best interest” this weekend, Liberty Grove Town Chairman Charlie Most said, “with the gapers’ block it would cause. And I would hate to see any looting of the store.”

Demolition of the store is tentatively scheduled to start Tuesday, for completion Wednesday afternoon. If the work can be done on that timeline, Wisconsin 42 could open to the public Wednesday evening. No cost estimates for the demolition were reported Friday.

In the meantime, a 6-foot-high chain-link fence will be installed around the Cedar Grove properties north of Wills Park to the southwest corner of Cedar Branch Road and down to the shore. Cedar Shore Road will be blocked off.

Property owners who live on Cedar Branch Road will have access to their homes. The 40 boat owners with slips and boats at the town dock near the Cedar Grove Resort will have limited access to their boats for the next two to three weeks.

The fence could remain in place for up to six weeks, said Mark Harrison of General Casualty Insurance, an insurance investigator for the Cedar Grove Resort.

Harrison said his job is to represent the Cedar Grove Resort and its owners, the Harold Smith family, to coordinate the insurance investigators’ efforts, establish damages and reach a settlement with the party that severed the gas pipe.

Gas levels were being monitored Friday by emergency service crews within the cordoned-off area. Homeowners and most business owners were allowed back into their buildings Friday, with the exception of The Viking Grill, Caxton Bookstore and the Marathon gas station.

Liberty Grove town supervisors met Friday afternoon with town attorney Jack Bruce and Harrison to approve razing the Pioneer Store.

Bruce told the board that the Pioneer Store was deemed unsafe for habitation and razing the building would be the next appropriate step. The insurance companies and store owner Carol Newman would be responsible for the costs associated with the demolition.

WFRV-TV (Original story with photos here)

(WFRV) ELLISON BAY, Wis. The Liberty Grove Town Board held a special emergency board meeting Friday afternoon regarding the Ellison Bay disaster.

A severed underground liquid propane line caused Monday’s explosions that killed two vacationers, injured seven others, wrecked three buildings and virtually closed down this tiny tourist town in Door County.

The town board has decided to fence-in the Cedar Grove Resort, where two of the three buildings are located, while the investigation continues.

The town will also demolish the third building that was wrecked, the historic Pioneer Store, possibly on Tuesday.

Authorities hope to reopen Highway 42 by Wednesday

The Door County Sheriff’s Department says residents have been allowed back into their homes, and most of the businesses are back open. The power has been restored to most areas except for the Cedar Grove Resort. And local traffic is being allowed into Ellison Bay as far as the Mink River Basin Supper Club.

Chief Deputy Gary Behling said the severed line was on private property and serviced two of the buildings at the Cedar Grove Resort where two of the explosions occurred.

The severed line was connected to at least one of two 1,000-gallon tanks on the property, Behling said.

“It fed the Cedar Grove Resort,” he said. “They have capped the line that was damaged. They continue to test the area around the explosion sites.”

A contractor for Wisconsin Public Service Corp. worked in the area last week burying some electrical cable with a drilling machine, and the propane line was apparently broken during that work, Behling said.

Marilyn Bazett-Jones, a spokeswoman for WPS in Green Bay, said private propane lines are not marked by Diggers Hotline and only the owner would know where they are buried. The statewide Diggers Hotline, supported by public utilities and municipalities, helps people make sure excavation work doesn’t hit buried utility lines.

“There are a lot of questions,” Bazett-Jones said. “The nature of the work is under investigation. We are cooperating fully.”

Some holes are being dug in efforts to ventilate any gas that may remain trapped underground, Behling said.

Investigators still were trying to determine how the gas flowed underground, ending up in some buildings that exploded and skipping others that were unharmed, and the sequence of the explosions, Behling said.

Behling did not know how much propane may have leaked out. Liquid propane becomes a gas when it is released into the air.

The blasts, about 2:30 a.m. Monday, collapsed the Pioneer Store, a landmark and the only grocery store in this unincorporated village of about 150 residents near the tip of the Door County peninsula, and damaged the resort’s maintenance building that included several living units.

The explosion burned down the resort cabin where Patrick M. Higdon, 49, and Margaret Brooks Higdon, 45, of Bloomfield, Hills, Mich., were killed. They were vacationing with other family members, including three children, two of whom were seriously injured, authorities said.

By Deb Fitzgerald, Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers / Original article appeared in Green Bay Press Gazette

ELLISON BAY — Julie Williams has been a paramedic for 10 years. Bob Landeck, a paramedic for 27. But neither their experience nor the 2:30 a.m. dispatch call Monday describing multiple explosions and injuries prepared them for the gravity of the event they were about to deal with.

Williams, 34, and Landeck, 57, were the first emergency personnel to arrive on the scene from the North Ambulance Center at the Sister Bay fire station early Monday, when three explosions in Ellison Bay claimed two lives and caused seven injuries.

“It wasn’t even a thought in my mind that it was going to be serious,” Williams said. “I know that sounds terrible, but you just never expect that.”

The paramedics listened to radio dispatches while traveling about eight miles to Ellison Bay. They learned the Pioneer Store had been leveled; they learned that people were injured.

“That will get your adrenaline up a little bit,” Landeck said.

“Then we came to the top of the (Ellison Bay) hill and saw the flames shooting above the trees, and both of us simultaneously said, ‘Holy crap,’” Williams said.

The moment was so intense, Williams couldn’t think of a radio code that adequately described what they were witnessing.

“10-33 is emergency, but that didn’t do it,” Williams said. “So I said, ‘It’s really, really bad,’ because that’s all I could think of at the time.

“It looked like a war zone. There was glass and debris everywhere. All you saw was flames and smoke and people yelling; the only smell I remember is burnt flesh and hair. It was just insane.”

Williams and Landeck headed for where they’d been told the most seriously injured were waiting.

“We were driving over lawns and around fire trucks, and over debris,” Landeck said. “With good fortune, we stopped where the most injured were.”

They were the family members of Patrick and Margaret Higdon of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who died in the explosion: twin sons, James and Patrick, 14, daughter, Megan, 12 and Margaret Higdon’s parents, James and Margery Brooks.

“Their hair was singed, their eyelashes were singed, but it wasn’t what I expected to see,” William said. “I think it was because they were blown out of the building.”

James Brooks said he remembered “flying through the air and hitting something with his chest,” Williams said. “Then he remembered looking down and seeing his wife, who had been blown out of the building onto the grass.”

James Brooks informed Williams that the children’s parents were killed in the explosion.

“Not that I needed it, but the magnitude of the situation was brought into light by that,” Williams said. “It’s still so surreal.”

“I don’t really remember the scene after that,” Williams said. “I really honed in on the patients and stayed with them. It’s weird. You kind of just ‘do.’”

The paramedics took the family to Door County Memorial Hospital in Sturgeon Bay. Megan was taken separately because Williams didn’t know she was a member of the Higdon family.

Williams traveled to Green Bay on Tuesday to visit the family at St. Vincent Hospital. At the time, only the grandmother remained in ICU. Williams said her gesture wasn’t “a totally selfless act.” She needed to hug them, and talk with them, and know they were OK as part of her own healing process.

Margery Brooks was listed in fair condition Friday at St. Vincent; Megan and Patrick Higdon also were still hospitalized.

While there, Williams learned the grandparents were going to raise their orphaned grandchildren.

“I thought people would want to know what was going to happen with them,” she said.

Adrenaline, training and experience kept Williams going, and her emotions in check, as she performed her job Monday. But once she reached the hospital, and her patients were in the care of doctors and nurses, her body reminded her of what she’d just been through.

“Someone asked me how I was doing, and I just broke down and started crying,” Williams said. “All I could say was, ‘Their parents were killed.’”

— Deb Fitzgerald writes for the Door County Advocate.

ELLISON BAY, Wis. (AP) — For a second time this week, people were allowed to return to their homes following the deadly explosions from a liquid propane leak of an underground line, authorities said Friday.

Door County Chief Deputy Sheriff Gary Behling said monitors indicated that levels of propane gas were decreasing, allowing authorities to lift some of the restrictions on access to the tiny village.

Most businesses reopened and electrical power was restored to all but the Cedar Grove Resort, where two of the three explosions occurred about 2:30 a.m. Monday, he said.

One explosion burned down the resort cabin where Patrick M. Higdon, 49, and Margaret Brooks Higdon, 45, of Bloomfield, Hills, Mich., were killed. They were vacationing with other family members, including three children, two of whom were seriously injured, authorities said.

The blasts also collapsed the Pioneer Store, the village’s only grocery store, and damaged the resort’s maintenance building that included several living units.

Highway 42 through the downtown remained closed Friday and probably would remain so for several days, or until the Pioneer Store was razed, probably no earlier than Tuesday, Behling said.

One of the survivors of Monday’s explosions has been released from the hospital.

According to a representative from the Higdon’s church in Michigan, Jim Brooks has been released from St. Vincent Hospital. He is the father of Peggy Higdon, who died with her husband Patrick in the explosion.

Brooks’s wife Margery remains hospitalized. She faces several months of rehabilitation.

Paco Higdon has been transported to University of Michigan Children’s Hospital for further facial surgeries.

His sister Megan is still recovering from her surgery and will hopefully be released from the hospital soon.

Funeral plans for Patric and Peggy Higdon have not yet been made.

Press Gazette

If you were planning a trip to Gill’s [sic] Rock or Washington Island this weekend, don’t let news of the Ellison Bay disaster put you off your game.

“Obviously it’s a concern of ours that people think (Wisconsin) 42 is closed from Ellison Bay north, which is not the case,” said Jon Jarosh, marketing director for the Door County Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve done all we can to let people know in fact there’s a short detour around the closed portion of 42, and it’s only about 3 miles — just a couple of minutes.”

While a handful of businesses in the immediate downtown Ellison Bay area have been closed since Monday, most businesses in Ellison Bay remain open, the chamber reports on its Web site, www.doorcounty.com.

Businesses, attractions and services north of Ellison Bay are all open, accessible and operating as usual, the Web site says.

If you’re heading north, take Wisconsin 42 toward Ellison Bay, turn right onto Highview Road, travel east about 1.25 miles, turn left onto Lakeview Road and head north for about 1.5 miles back to Wisconsin 42, which will take you north for the rest of the trip.

(WFRV – Original Article.) ELLISON BAY, Wis. A severed propane line is now being blamed for causing the explosion in Door County that killed a Michigan couple and destroyed three buildings.

Sheriff Terry Vogel says it appears liquid propane caused the explosion in Ellison Bay early Monday morning. Vogel says they’ve capped off the leak and continue to monitor the gas levels in the area. Authorities did not detect dangerous gasses on Monday and Tuesday, but a resurgence of explosive gasses on Wednesday sent investigators back into the evacuation zone to search for the source.

WPS spokesman Kerry Spees says a contractor for Wisconsin Public Service Corp. worked in the area late last week burying some electrical cable.

Three early-morning explosions on Monday rocked the tiny tourist town on the shores of Lake Michigan. One of the blasts killed a couple from Michigan on a family vacation and severely injured two of their children and the woman’s parents, authorities said.

“They were vacationing together. This was their annual vacation. They did it (at Ellison Bay) for a long, long time,” the Rev. Norman Nawrocki, pastor of St. Regis Roman Catholic Parish in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., said.

Killed were Patrick M. Higdon, 49, and Margaret Brooks Higdon, 45, according to the Brown County Medical Examiner’s office in Green Bay.

Two of their three children, Patrick and Megan, remained hospitalized in Green Bay as did Margaret Higdon’s parents, James and Margery Brooks, Nawrocki said. The boy suffered injuries to his right eye and cheekbone, and the girl had her spleen removed, Nawrocki said.

Among the grandmother’s injuries was a broken hip and two ankles, Nawrocki said. The priest did not know the extent of the grandfather’s injuries. Three other people had minor injuries.

About 400 people attended a Tuesday morning Mass held on behalf of the family, Nawrocki said.

“The parish has just been devastated,” he said.

The blasts, about 2:30 a.m. Monday, collapsed a 136-year-old grocery store, burned down a cottage where the couple was killed and damaged a maintenance building that also includes several living units in this unincorporated village of about 150 residents near the tip of the Door County peninsula, authorities said.

The cottage was part of the Cedar Grove Resort, where 49 people were staying.

Townsfolk described the grocery store, the Pioneer Store, as the lifeblood of the community, a place to get the morning newspaper, sip a bottle of soda, rent a movie or just gossip about who was sick. It even opened on Christmas Day.

“It was a real treasure and I will dearly miss it,” said Betsy Titterington, 55, who lives about a mile from the blast. “When people come to visit, that was one of the first places you would take them.”

The wrecked buildings covered an area about 200 yards long and some other buildings between them were not damaged.

Highway 42 through the village was to remain closed indefinitely as the cleanup continued, requiring travelers going further north to be detoured around the village, Vogel said.

Late Tuesday, the five-member Sister Bay/Liberty Grove Fire Commission authorized the immediate demolition of the Pioneer Store and the collapsed maintenance building, said Denise Bhirdo, a member of the commission. To speed the process, the commission met in the middle of a town road in order to officially condemn the properties.

It is not safe to reopen Highway 42 until the Pioneer Store is demolished, Bhirdo said.

Signs that the village was slowly returning to normal began to appear Tuesday morning. Just blocks up the road from the blast, some people played tennis on a community court. A meeting between some investigators, including the sheriff, and property owners took place inside the Mink River Basin Supper Club just across the street from the flattened Pioneer Store.

The Pioneer Store endeared people because it was an old-fashioned grocery store, with antique fixtures and a hammered tin ceiling, Titterington said. “You could charge your stuff.”

Michael Brecke, 59, called it simply an old country store.

“All we needed was a space in the middle with a pot belly stove and two guys chewing tobacco sitting there,” he said. “It was so much in the daily life of this community.”

For now, townsfolk will have to drive about five miles south to Sister Bay to the Piggly Wiggly store for groceries, Titterington said.

As she stared at the wrecked Pioneer Store, Titterington hoped it would be rebuilt but knew it would never be the same.

And her tiny village? “I am sure it will come back to life,” she said. “It’s a great little town.”

Original Article.

State fire marshals and local authorities are using 911 calls the morning of the explosions in Ellison Bay to help them figure out what happened.

Today, the Door County Sheriff’s Department released those 911 calls from Monday night, when two buildings on the Cedar Grove Resort and the Pioneer Store exploded.

The first calls came in at about 2-30 a.m. [sic]

——————————-

Dispatch: “9-1-1 what’s the address of your emergency?”

Caller: “Yeah, it looks like the Cedar Grove Resort in Ellison Bay has a major fire. It looks like there’s been an explosion.  There are flames shooting out of the building right now.”

——————————-

Caller: “A cabin’s on fire. I think it was struck by lightning. I don’t know but people are screaming, probably people hurt. There was a big explosion.”

Dispatcher: “Okay, you say this is at the cedar grove resort?”

Caller: “Yeah.”

Dispatcher: “Okay, we just got a call that it was the Pioneer Store but you’re sure it’s the Cedar Grove Resort?”

Caller: “Yes, it’s definitely the Cedar Grove Resort.”

——————————-

Caller: “This is Cedar Grove Resort.  One of our cottages just blew up.”

Dispatcher: “Okay, do you know why it blew up?”

Caller: “I have no idea. We just heard it and we could see the flames coming out now.”

——————————-

Caller: “There’s been an explosion or damage to the … the property on Cedar Shore Road in Ellison Bay. The entire front porch has collapsed. There are windows out and there’s flashing electricity inside, I can see it.”

——————————-

Caller: “Ellison Bay, downtown. It blew up.”

Dispatcher: “What blew up?”

Caller: “The whole store.”

Dispatcher: “What store?”

Caller: “The Pioneer Store.”

Dispatcher: “The Pioneer Store?”

Caller: “The whole thing.”

Dispatcher: “It blew up?”

Caller: “Yes.”

Dispatcher: “Okay is there anybody in it, do you know?”

Caller: “I don’t know. I was parked here by Mink River and heard it blow up.”

ELLISON BAY — The explosions that rocked three Ellison Bay buildings early Monday were “like being at Universal Studios on the earthquake ride,” said Carol Newman, who walked out of the Pioneer Store virtually unharmed.

“I didn’t know when it was going to quit. And I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of here,’” said Newman, 68, who was sleeping in her living quarters on the second floor toward the back of the building.

“When the shaking settled down, I heard screaming and hollering coming from down the street. I got up and there were people there who helped me out of the window. First responders, firefighters, I don’t know. After that point, I don’t remember anything else.”

… The first floor walls of the Pioneer Store blew out sideways. DVD cases, rubber balls and boxes of bandages flew into the street, and the explosion sent the second floor crashing to street level. The only thing that kept Newman’s bedroom and the rear of the second story from falling to street level were food freezers in the back of the store.

Full Story Here.

There’s a massive setback tonight in the effort to reopen Ellison Bay.

“We began detecting some carbon monoxide and eventually some gases that are of the explosive nature,” said Door County Sheriff, Terry Vogel.

Investigators discovered the high levels of gasses late Tuesday night.

It’s the same area where several explosions early Monday morning destroyed three buildings.

Two people died and several more were hurt.

Investigators were hoping by this afternoon to have the Pioneer store torn down. That was the building right along highway 42 that was destroyed in the explosions. They also hoped to have the road reopened.

Instead, they were forced to expand the evacuation area and halt any demolition because of rising gas levels.

Just when they thought they were making progress, the detection of high levels of explosive gasses last night again forced the evacuation of Ellison Bay.

“We had allowed them to come back in for a short period of time. Once the gasses began to develop again yesterday, we moved them back, we got them out of the area,” Vogel said.

This latest development has not haulted the initial investigation into what caused the explosions Monday morning, but Sheriff Vogel says they’re now challenged with figuring out why high levels of gas that weren’t detected for most of the day yesterday, are back today.

“We’re trying to make some determinations if it’s continuing to spread. We may end up having a greater evacuation area if it does.”

As they try to make that determination, investigators are still working on whether propane gas or something else caused Monday’s explosions.

“We’re still investigating that source, still eliminating some, and we just don’t have that answer for you at this point.”

Article originally appeared here.

By Paul Srubas, Green Bay Press Gazette (Click for Full Story)

ELLISON BAY — A quarter-mile stretch of Ellison Bay remains barricaded this morning as investigators probe the rubble of three buildings brought down by explosions or fire early Monday…..

Passage on Wisconsin 42 through Ellison Bay and access to several businesses and residences will remain closed at least until construction crews can tear down the landmark Pioneer Store, a 136-year-old building on Wisconsin 42 that collapsed, leaving its second story and roof teetering on the remains of the rest of the structure.

The owner, Carol Newman, 68, was sleeping in the second story when the building collapsed but managed to escape with minor injuries with the help of emergency service workers shortly after the blast.

A hastily called meeting of the Sister Bay/Liberty Grove Fire Commission — held Tuesday evening in the dead center of Wisconsin 42 — granted Fire Chief Chris Hecht authority to order the razing of two structures still barely standing after Monday morning’s blast. The other building is a combination workshop and rental apartments that is part of the Cedar Grove Resort complex.

Razing the remaining structures means more than just the re-opening of Ellison Bay commerce; it also will provide investigators with their first chance to examine the insides of the buildings, the remains of which are too rickety to allow entrance, Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel said Tuesday.

“We can’t get close for fear of the building collapsing,” he said. “It’s continuing to creak and crack — there’s a lot of movement.”

Click for Full Story.

By Paul Srubas, Green Bay Press Gazette (Click for Full Story)

Erin Isaacson can’t get the sounds of the screams out of her head.

Isaacson, 23, and her husband, who live in both Ellison Bay and Green Bay, were the first neighbors on the scene when explosions caused a duplex to burn and two nearby buildings to collapse early Monday. Two people died and several people were injured in the duplex fire.

Two explosions were so loud and so close, Erin Isaacson awakened thinking they had happened in her parents’ condominium, where she and her husband, her parents and grandparents were staying. Their condominium is about 50 yards from the destroyed duplex.

“It shook our house. I saw the walls move. I thought it was our house — it sounded like a bomb in our house,” Isaacson said Tuesday. “I thought we would find that a tree came through.”

Erin and Andy Isaacson ran out barefooted and in their pajamas to investigate, she said. They immediately smelled the smoke and heard screaming.

“I’ll never forget the screams,” Isaacson said. “I’ve just been sick. I thought I was going to throw up.”

When they approached the back door of the duplex, they saw three people, apparently injured, lying in the grass, and a girl running and screaming for her mother.

Click for Full Story.

by Linda Spice, original article at Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Jon Bastian had finally gotten his first decent night of sleep since the deadly explosion that rattled Ellison Bay on Monday – until a morning knock by anxious authorities on Wednesday telling him to get out of his home.

“They said, ‘Get out now.’ It was, ‘Don’t think. Do it.’ I just grabbed a handful of shirts and got out of there,” he said after firefighters awakened him about 8 a.m.

Emergency officials monitoring the area took precautions Wednesday after they detected high levels of potentially explosive propane gas. The cause of Monday’s explosion is not yet known, but officials are investigating whether a private contractor working for the local power company may have accidentally hit a privately owned propane pipeline during a job last week.

The explosion killed Patrick M. Higdon, 49, and his wife, Margaret Brooks Higdon, 45, both of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who were staying at the Cottage Grove Resort, where a duplex and another building with four units, were hit. The four-unit building was unoccupied. Two of the Higdon’s three children were also seriously injured. Four of seven injured people brought to St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay remained hospitalized there Wednesday.

It was Bastian’s second evacuation in two days, and it occurred just as it appeared things might calm down soon. Wednesday, however, only brought more uncertainty for residents and business owners, who usually thrive in July and August on tourists’ dollars that are now missing in the quarter-mile area that remains closed.

“The gas levels are back up, and it’s on complete shutdown once again,” said Bastian, the head bartender at the Mink River Basin, who lives above the establishment, where he has worked for seven years.

He was shuffled off to a nearby inn but was allowed back into his home for a short while Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s pretty much of a ghost town except for me and a lot of cops,” he said.

Authorities during the day had expanded the perimeter being barricaded from the general public, no longer allowing anyone in as a safety precaution. Some evacuees were allowed to return with escorts by emergency officials to obtain some items, but that was strictly prohibited when the higher propane levels were discovered, said Door County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Gary Behling.

Federal, state and local authorities continued to work throughout the day in an attempt to figure out the source of the gas, Behling said.

The higher gas levels will indefinitely delay the razing of the Pioneer Store, which was irreparably damaged during the explosion. The delay will also prolong the closure of state Highway 42 through Ellison Bay for at least a couple of days, Behling said. Authorities had hoped to have the road open on Tuesday and then Wednesday. Now it is not known exactly when it will reopen, Behling said.

Meanwhile, John Smith, whose parents, Herald and Miriam Smith, own the Cottage Grove Resort, said his parents are devastated by Monday morning’s explosion.

“As dramatic as it is, for my parents, the two deaths are what’s on their minds the most,” he said. “It’s just devastating to have somebody staying on your property perish like that. They feel just terrible. They feel terrible for the family and the survivors, the children.”

The Smiths, who ran a trucking company out of Iowa, Cedar Rapids Steel Transport – now owned by John Smith – began spending summers in Door County in the early 1960s with their four children, John Smith said. In their search for a summer home in the area, the resort came up for sale with a house on it. They bought it in 1972 and have been running it since.