After Gas Explosions, 'It's A Ghost Town'

ANDOVER, MA — Micheline Cordiero was in her apartment on Elm Street in Andover when she saw on the evening news that a fire had broken out in Lawrence. Then she heard reports of fires in Andover and North Andover, too.

"With all those fires, I thought, 'Something is really going on here,' " Cordiero said Friday. But she didn't think at first she would be directly affected. Then came a phone call from her landlord.

"He told me that I needed to evacuate," she said.

All over the Merrimack Valley, homes were exploding and fires breaking out, and confused residents were already taking to the road.

Cordiero, a retired food service employee from Harvard, wasn't sure what to do, so she called her children in Dracut and Medfield.

Because the roads were already getting jammed with evacuees, they couldn't make it to her. They encouraged her not to try to get on the road to get to them, so she headed to the nearby square, where she ran into a friend. He offered to take her to the Whittier Senior Center, which had been turned into a makeshift shelter for many of those forced to evacuate.

The sequence of events is blurry now, Cordiero said, after dozens of cups of coffee, but she signed in at the shelter and settled in as best she could. Volunteers and Senior Center employees offered water and coffee and cots with blankets, but while they were all quite nice, she still worried about being away from her home for the night.

"I didn't sleep, but I tried to doze a bit," she said Friday morning outside the center. "It's nice of everyone to have all this, and the food. I mean if we didn't have this, where would we be? But I kept hoping we'd get news that I could go home."

About every two hours, she checked in with a volunteer manning a map with streets indicating the no-go zone highlighted in yellow. No change.

"I felt like I'm in prison," said Cordiero. "It's amazing to me and weird that this happened. If I hadn't gotten the order to evacuate, I could have slept in my home and died in my sleep with all the gas. I shouldn't complain."

Latest news on the official response to Merrimack Valley gas disaster.

'People Just Want To Know What's Going On'

Lara Wysong, who lives a few streets over from the shelter, came up after work yesterday on the commuter rail from Boston, which stopped midway because of the fires and let passengers out to find their own way home.

By the time she got to Andover, she heard that areas north of Salem Street were no-go zones, so to be safe she made her way to the Whittier Youth Center Shelter. Like Cordiero, she hoped the news would change and she could go home, but after frequent check-ins the news didn't change, so she joined the folks on the cots.

"I felt like they did a good job with Red Cross and the food and water and taking care of this large group," said Wysong, who had to take Friday off from work. "Now I'm just waiting for the all-clear."

And that could take a while if the gas company is going door-to-door checking each of the homes.

"I think people just want to know what's going on," she said.

'It's a ghost town'

Skye McIntyre and Charlotte Newton, both seventh-graders at Dougherty Middle School, made their way to the Youth Center after looking to see what stores and businesses might be open. The duo said they had gotten scared after school Thursday hearing about all the fires.

"Yesterday I was walking around and saw a house on fire and went to see it and then suddenly there were a bunch of other fire trucks going to other houses and I thought it was just one," said Skye, 12.

She and Charlotte said their street still has power, but they're hearing stories of friends and schoolmates who have lost everything.
"You never think it's going to happen in your town," Skye said. "But three of our friends... their houses went kaboom. And it's really sad that someone did die."

Like many of those wandering around outside the shelter, holding their cell phones and looking for the latest news or talking to loved ones, Cordiero is waiting and hoping to hear a change in the status of her home.

If today were a normal day, Cordiero said, she would be walking to the square to get a cup of coffee or taking care of her grandchildren.
"But it's a ghost town in around the square," she said. " It doesn't feel like home. You get so used to your regular routine, it's just the minor, simple stuff."

Help?

All morning trucks and visitors with food donations pulled up to Whittier Senior Center dropping off everything from Orange Juice to bagels.

One man, a retired Maine Supreme Court Judge, Louis Scolnick, 95, came by to see if there was any way he could help.

"Luckily this happened when it happened, and so many people were out of their houses, but what I want to know is what can we do to help?" he said.

Annmary Connor, director of the senior center, said folks should call the center if they have skills they had and could add to the effort.

There were a number of spaces that opened up Thursday evening to take in families. Parthum Elementary School at 255 East Haverhill St in Lawrence, Field House at North Andover High School at 430 Osgood St., and the Andover Cormier Youth Center.

Read this: Explosions Prompt Mass Evacuation In Merrimack Valley

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Photos at top by Jenna Fisher/Patch Staff.

Captions:

1) Red Cross volunteers man the signup desk at the Cormier Youth Center.

2) Map showing streets still barred to re-entry by residents.

3 and 4) Cots await evacuees in the gym at the Cormier Youth Center.

5) Youth center employees lay out donuts donated by Frank and Jason Pino, owner of local Dunkin' Donuts restaurants.

6) A phone charging station set up on the grounds of the Cormier Senior Center.