Gas tank believed source of fatal explosion

GAINESVILLE - Investigators with the Hall County Fire Department think a leaking 100-pound propane gas tank was the cause of an explosion at a house west of Gainesville Monday night that killed three siblings and injured their parents

Eleven-year-old twins Kevin and Kayla Simmons and their 14-year-old brother, Casey Simmons, the explosion and fire at at their Springdale Forest Circle home.

The twins attended Sardis Elementary School.

"Counselors from Chestatee Middle School came out (as did some from) Mount Vernon Elementary and Lanier Elementary School," said Gordon Higgins, spokesman for the Hall County School System.

Higgins added "the students who were closest to the children (who were killed) were kind of put into special groups, you might say."

Higgins said this was done to "allow them to talk about (what happened) and talk about their hurt and their grief."

Casey Simmons attended Gainesville High.

A woman who lives about a mile from the scene of the explosion says she was getting ready for bed when the blast shook her home.

Sheila Bryant says "I thought my husband was working out with weights and he had dropped one of them. It was loud. Honestly, that's what I thought."

Bryant says she and her husband, Jim, looked outside but saw nothing unusal. She says what happened was "such a tragedy."

Jim Bryant says he thought "it was just a rogue thunderstorm or something, but the sky was clear. (I thought it might be) a sonic boom..."

The blast left the youngsters' mother Ginger Evans in critical condition and their step father Eddie Evans in stable condition. Both are hospitalized at Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Lanier Park Campus.

Hall County Fire Chief Mike Satterfield says searchers spent the night combing the rubble of the explosion, which happened at 10 p.m., for the bodies - and found the last one about four a.m. They even called in a backhoe to help sift through the debris.

Chief Satterfield says it was a tremendous explosion.

"You know, it basically totally dismantled this home," Satterfield said. "(It threw) debris a couple of hundred feet through a wooded area behind the home."

Hall County Fire Marshall David Kimbrell says a 100-pound propane gas cylinder like those used in recreational vehicles was in the lower section of the home being used as secondary heat.

He says a leaking connection likely started the fire causing the blast.