No one thinks that anything catastrophic is going to happen in their neighbourhood. At worst most Canadians worry about what will happen if there is another ice-storm like the one in 1998 that left some Canadians without power for weeks. Or another big blackout like the one the one that hit the northeast quadrant of North America in summer of 2003. Certainly no one things that a propane facility in their neighbourhood is going to explode but that's what happened to residents of Toronto's Downsview neighbourhood in the early morning of August 10.

Truth Seeker posted several videos that show the explosion, including several from some popular YouTubers who were there for an 08/08/08 gathering. When you watch you will understand why so many people initially worried that the city had been bombed. As Tricia's Musings says, the footage is reminiscent of that you would see from a war zone.

People witnessed the blast from as far away as Niagara on the Lake (1.5 hours from here) and Aurora (about 50 min drive from here). Some said they thought it was a dirty bomb or nuclear blast. Looking at the footage and photos I can understand why they felt that way as it really looks like a war scene. It reminds me of watching footage of scud missiles hitting targets in Iraq.

Fear was present in the IM conversation that Kattekylling posted as her live blog of the explosion. And you can't blame allywest for being thankful for being out of town when it happened.

I can't imagine seeing this from far away not knowing it was a propane factory fire and thinking it was a nuclear attack.

Rhonda at Journey to Our Little Maple and Back did not live close and still felt the blast.

Josh and I woke up this morning to what we thought was the sound of LOUD thunder just before 4:00...little did we know what it really was until later. We live about 20 minutes away from the accident site (by car) yet we still heard it.

More than 12,000 residents were evacuated during the six alarm fire. The explosion left them wondering why on earth a propane facility was allowed to exist so close to their homes. The Toronto Real Estate - The TO Guide

points out that the homes in the area actually built around the facility and that we should be very lucky that so few were injured.

This propane facility has been there for many years and the homes have grown up around it. The zoning bylaws for the area are under review since the zoning has not been updated with the amalgamation of the city.

Well, thankfully there were not many injuries, this could have been a lot worse.

Blog TO offered updates throughout the day as new information filtered in, including the death of local firefighter Bob Leek. There was only one other death due to the incident, a Sunrise Propane employee that has been identified as Sheridan college student Parminder Saini.

In the aftermath of the explosion local residents have filed a $30 million class action suit against Sunrise Propane, the City of Toronto, and the provincial government.

It's also left some residents of the city thinking about the future. Not being able to find any way to help left Sylvia contemplative and looking into the possibility of doing disaster response training or something similar.

For a full hour and a half I tried to find out where to go to volunteer. I called the radio stations, police, TV precincts- but of course the phone lines were all tied up and I could get no farther than somebody's voice mail no matter where I called.

[...]

When I was working with the Red Cross at Base Borden I had lots of time to talk to other Red Cross volunteers and that’s when I first heard about the Disaster Response Training that Red Cross offers so that there’s a well-trained cadre of volunteers available when disaster strikes. Indeed, just as I was thinking about this, the image of somebody wearing a Red Cross vest was flashed onto the TV screen. This is something that can be done at the local or at the international level. I’d thought about it in 1999. Now, as I’m about to have - for the first time - the ability to devote my “working hours” time and energy as I choose it’s something I can change from a thought to a reality.

I lived in Toronto for close to two and a half years. I've only been gone for just over a year and I can only imagine how I would have felt waking up, seeing a mushroom cloud and thinking that my city was under attack. I have no doubt that I would have turned to the internet first, the television second and the telephone third (although in reality would have been almost simultaneous), all the while wishing I had taken Skeet's advice about emergency preparedness. I've seen the videos, heard the screams and read the first-hand reports and it's still unbelievable to me. We can't live our lives in fear of the next big bang but there's nothing wrong with a bit of preparedness, right?

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.