Mystery blast rattles street

No one's sure yet what blew up on the quiet Tampa street.

By LETITIA STEIN, Times Staff Writer
Published January 2, 2008

Ismael Casas Jr., 7, points out to his brother, Marvin Casas, 6, where the explosion occurred early Tuesday.
	[Carrie Pratt | Times]

TAMPA - As the Millers pulled up to their home on W Berry Avenue after spending the night out ringing in the new year, they thought it odd that their neighbor's window was blown out.

Then they spotted their own gray house with blue shutters - and the shattered front windows. Dirty insulation from the entryway ceiling was piled under the door with Christmas wreath on a gold hanger.

At the home across the street, a front door was boarded with plywood.

A mysterious explosion rocked a customarily quiet block of the Wellswood neighborhood during the early morning hours of the new year, damaging half a dozen homes. No one was hurt.

Tampa police had few details Tuesday about the explosion, either where it originated or what caused it. A bomb squad spent the early hours of 2008 marking the bits of fallout from the explosion. Police told neighbors that the device had to be homemade, pointing the curls of electric tape left in the street.

Neighbors pointed to a small crater singed into the asphalt in front of 1017 W Berry Ave., Dave and Michelle Miller's home.

"God, I hope nobody's targeting us," Michelle Miller said as she waited for police to arrive before entering her home Tuesday afternoon.

She hugged her husband, and both wiped away tears.

Sometime between 12:30 and 1 a.m., Richard Sanchez said, he heard the glass shattering in his bedroom window. At first, he thought a neighbor had shot fireworks through his window.

Then he realized it was some kind of explosion.

"It's the biggest thing that's happened here in a while," said Sanchez, who lives across the street from the Millers and has lived on the street for 27 years. "Not a good start to the new year for a lot of people."

In the daylight, Sanchez found his front yard littered with electric tape. Like other neighbors, he kept an eye out all afternoon for the Millers to break the news to them.

As they pulled up, Dave Miller was on his cell phone, reporting what he thought was a break-in.

Neighbors told them about the explosion.

As the Millers spent their first night of the new year boarding windows and picking up glass, they looked for a silver lining.

"I feel lucky that we weren't home," Michelle Miller said. "It would have been a lot more frightening."

[Last modified January 1, 2008, 23:34:24]