Folsom Homeowners Shaken By Random Blasts From Construction Site
FOLSOM (CBS13) — A large explosion in Folsom is sounding alarms at city hall after worried neighbors called in with questions.
City officials said the blasts are happening at a nearby construction site south of Highway 50. Construction crews are clearing rock out of the area so they can build more homes. The explosions are big enough that people are literally seeing their houses shake.
Deepika Ganganarasaiah and her family said they felt an explosion Wednesday night while watching TV.
"Suddenly we heard this very loud sound as if something went off," she said.
Ganganarasaiah said she could see the whole thing from her back window, including a plume of smoke.
"We felt like we think something is wrong, it doesn't feel right," she said.
Her neighbor just down the street says her family heard a blast as they were eating dinner.
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"My daughter got scared and she was asking 'is it an earthquake?'" said Padmasree Siricilla.
Folsom city leaders are now involved and have put a temporary ban on blasting until the company running this project figures out what went wrong. City engineer Steve Krahn said the blasts are extremely unusual and in this case only involved sound, no major ground disturbance.
"Almost like [the] boom of a jet flying by, but there was no debris, there was nothing flying through the air," he said.
Krahn said neighbors should check for cracks in their homes but don't need to worry.
He said damage to homes is highly unlikely. These blasts have been going on for years and there have been several hundred in this area before with no problems. However, people living here still feel very uneasy about it all.
"If I can feel it inside the house from such a distance maybe there can be an effect on the house itself," Ganganarasaiah said.