Neighbors, community rallies around family displaced by deadly Sunset District explosion
SAN FRANCISCO -- The photos show the destructive power unleashed during February 9th's fatal explosion that claimed a 51-year-old woman's life and reduced a two-story Sunset District home to rubble.
David Garth, his wife Nang Sarah Phommavongsay, and their young daughter lived next door. While their home is still standing, very little else is left undamaged inside.
On Sunday, a gofundme page set up by the young girl's school stood at $54,541 collected from donations by 568 individuals as the family tries to piece together their lives.
Even though more than a week has passed, it's still hard for Garth to come to grips with what has happened.
Garth was working in Oakland at the time of the blast when he suddenly got a text message from a worried friend.
Then his wife called crying hysterically. Still he wasn't prepared for what he found when he arrived home.
Garth was only able to salvage a handful of items from the home he and his family lived in for almost a decade. Most of the items were in a back bedroom that didn't burn in the aftermath of the blast and 3-alarm fire.
"It's a total loss. Everything is damaged, everything completely gone," said his wife Nang, as she tried unsuccessfully to hold back the tears.
Nang said their 6-year-old daughter's bedroom was on the side of the house closest to the explosion, and now, almost everything inside is unrecognizable.
"Normally I would have been home at that time, but that day things played out differently and thank goodness we weren't there," David told KPIX.
David and his wife are hoping there's more the city can do to help. He said they don't have renter's insurance, and their only safety net right now is the online fundraising campaign.
"Most of what survived was clothing that was in the back bedroom, we've been told not to use because it may be contaminated with asbestos or lead from the old house and also from next door and also the chemicals that Darren (Price) was playing with," he said.
Their next door neighbor Darron Price has been charged with manufacturing drugs in his home and manslaughter because his disabled wife, Rita, died in the blast and fire.
Investigators say he had turned the house into an illegal drug lab that sparked the explosion.
Prosecutors have also charged Price with two counts of child endangerment. Two kids -- his wife's teenage children from a previous relationship -- lived in the house and fortunately were in school at the time of the explosion.