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By Lisa Kocian, Globe Staff
April 24, 2005

Janet Webster awoke sometime around 1:30 a.m. She had expected to get up in the middle of that summer night, but assumed it would be to take care of her 19-year-old son, Matthew, who had gone to bed sick. Instead, she heard a deafening roar and pounding that her mind raced to identify.

A jet plane landing in front of the house? That was her first thought. But when she looked out the window, all was quiet on Main Street.

She felt the house trembling under her feet and realized the noise was coming from the basement.

Her 25-year-old daughter, Emily, awoke around the same time in a bedroom on the other side of their first-floor apartment. She felt spooked, as if she had been watching a horror movie in her sleep and had been startled awake by a scary scene. Her home felt strange to her.

Then she heard it, too -- a whistling, rushing sound like a giant, screaming teakettle.

Janet Webster is vibrant and soft-spoken at the same time, a youthful woman with blond hair and green eyes, who directs a day care center. The single mother lights up around her children.

Emily is a take-charge big sister. She was living at home and working at the hip clothing store Monsoon at the Natick Mall.

They were among the 12 people who, in late July 2002, were living at 65 Main St., a yellow three-story house across from a bank and a liquor store and one door over from the fire station in downtown Hopkinton.

Mother and daughter met in the kitchen and tried to talk, but their voices were drowned out by the din. Janet motioned to Emily to go into the basement with her to see what was wrong. Emily was scared and refused.

Janet, then 46, approached the basement door, grabbed the knob, and smelled the sulfurous odor of gas. She froze for a moment in terror, then turned to Emily and told her to wake up her siblings.

Emily charged into the rooms where her brother, Matthew, and her 15-year-old sister, Hayley, were trying to sleep. Matthew was feeling sick from a reaction to a bee sting and was never easy to rouse anyway.

Hayley had stayed up late instant messaging friends. She had heard the noise and pulled the covers over her head.

Emily shook Matthew, unplugging the air conditioner above his head and putting the plug in his hand to prove to him it wasn't the source of the sound.

To Matthew, the house seemed alive, as if a car was in the basement with its gas pedal pinned to the floorboards. He put on shorts, no shoes or shirt, expecting to come right back in once the problem was fixed.

Emily pushed her siblings to move fast.

''Do you want to live or die?" she said to them.

Janet Webster's gut told her they had to get out. She didn't want to call 911 from inside the house, so she grabbed her cellphone and keys as she and her family rushed out. Though it was dark, none of them switched on a light.

Up on the second floor, at around the same time the Websters were hurrying out of the house, Richard Maijs woke up.

The 37-year-old single man, who owns a gymnastics training center in Holliston, heard the noise, too, which he described as a loud hissing, like roadwork going on outside.

Like Hayley, he stayed in bed for a minute or two, hoping the sound would go away.

When it didn't, he got up and immediately smelled gas. The odor was even more intense where a pipe from the heating system came out of the floor.

Now alarmed, he opened his window and looked down toward Matthew Webster's bedroom, which was just below his, and started thinking about how to warn the other people in the house.

Next to Maijs lived two young parents, Heath and Tara Carey, 26 and 27, and their two young daughters, Violet Anna, 5, and Iris Mary, 4.

The couple were running a small Internet business selling handmade clothes for the nightclub crowd.The girls were well known to other tenants and could often be spotted in the yard, talking on toy cellphones or playing on their Barbie bikes. They were friendly, shouting ''Hi, neighbor!" to Matthew Webster when they saw him.

They seemed like best friends as well as sisters, said the Websters.

Despite the ominous noise in the basement that had roused the Websters and Maijs, the Careys remained asleep, parents and daughters on adjoining futons in the bedroom they all shared.

An ordinary dayThe temperature had climbed into the 90s that day, July 23, 2002, but the heat had been broken by afternoon showers. The country was gearing up for a second war in Iraq. The Dow fell below 8,000 after the largest-ever bankruptcy filing by WorldCom Inc., and the Red Sox were at home taking on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The gossip pages wondered how long Sean Penn or Clint Eastwood might be in Boston to film the movie ''Mystic River."

In addition to the Websters, Maijs, and the Careys, Antonio Defreitas, 32, lived on the third floor with his wife, Poliana Compos, 21, and their son Bryan, 5, who often played with the Carey girls.

Janet Webster went to bed early that night, around 9 or 10 p.m., worn out after a long day overseeing summer camp at her day care center.

Hayley was home from a baby-sitting job, and Matthew had returned from Fenway, where he had watched the first game of the Sox-Devil Rays doubleheader, a 22-4 victory for the home team.

Emily Webster came home around 11:15 p.m. after closing up Monsoon. She found her sister still awake, which was unusual.

''I remember her saying, 'I don't know what's wrong, I can't sleep, I feel weird,' " said Emily. The no-nonsense Emily was too tired to talk to Hayley, who is as reserved as Emily is spirited. They both went to bed.

Richard Maijs had an uneventful evening -- heating his dinner in the microwave, calling his girlfriend in Germany, taking a bath, and then settling on the couch to watch a movie.

Around 10 p.m., he used the Internet to do some research for a cooling fan he needed for his business. He went to bed at about 11:20 p.m.

The Careys had taken Iris to work at the office of their clothing business, freakandfrolic.com, in Milford, while Violet played at a friend's house for the day.

At around 5:30 or 6 p.m., they all came home. Iris and Violet looked with excitement through a school supplies catalog, gazing ahead to the fall when Violet was supposed to start kindergarten at Hopkinton's Center School and Iris was to start prekindergarten.

Tara Carey put the children to bed on their small futon around 9 p.m. Iris, who loved swimming in her grandparents' pool, fell asleep that night wearing her favorite bathing suit.

Heath Carey stayed up later. He went out briefly to pick up cigarettes at the nearby Cumberland Farms. When he came home, he finished working on the computer on an e-mail marketing campaign they were sending out to promote their company.

When he turned in around 11:20 p.m., his wife was already asleep.

Natural gas is popular choice Natural gas is the most popular form of home heating in the United States and is used in about 63 million homes, according to Peggy Laramie, spokeswoman for the American Gas Association. The association, a trade group advocating for 195 gas utility companies, describes natural gas as clean, relatively inexpensive, and safe.

But in rare cases, it can also be deadly. Last year, there were 17 fatalities in the country due to gas accidents, according to federal government data.

Most natural gas explosions happen when excavators fail to clear their projects beforehand and break gas pipes they did not know were in the ground. Malfunctioning appliances can also cause leaks.

Now, as the occupants slept, natural gas began filling 65 Main St. While there is debate about where, how, and why the leak began, there is no debate about the presence of the gas.

Once the concentration of gas in the air reaches 5 percent, said Ronald J. Willey, professor of chemical engineering at Northeastern University, the smallest spark from using a telephone or flicking on a light can trigger an explosion. Even the static electricity from someone walking across a carpet can set off a blast.

Upon ignition, an exothermic, or heat-releasing, reaction occurs, with the gas expanding at a rapid rate -- and a shock wave is created that moves at the speed of sound, said Willey.

Emergency call Hopkinton dispatcher: 911 emergency, this line's recorded.

Caller: Yes, what just rocked Walcott Valley [a nearby street in downtown Hopkinton]?

Dispatcher: I have no idea. I'm trying to find out right now. I have no idea . . .

Caller: All right, well . . .

Dispatcher: OK?

Caller: There was a major explosion or something . . .

Dispatcher: . . . I know . . .

Caller: . . . rocked the building . . .

Dispatcher: I know. I heard -- felt it here. I have no idea what it is. The Fire Department . . .

Caller: It must have been an earthquake.

Dispatcher: Yeah, I don't know what it is. We're still trying to find it out.

Richard Maijs was looking for a shirt to put on when the house blew up. The time was about 1:41 a.m.

Maijs felt himself being lifted up. The room went black and red sparks shot over his head. Then he plummeted with the falling floor, hearing the screech of collapsing wood.

This is it, he thought.

As he landed, his ceiling fell on his head and he crouched down. The air reeked of what he called a ''foul and toxic" odor. He thought he would suffocate -- but then he glimpsed the outside where his living room window used to be.

Tara Carey was asleep when the house exploded. Jolted awake, her first sensations were of intense noise and heat, orange and blue flames, and falling. She landed in blackness on her back with her left leg twisted over her right, pinned down by pieces of the splintered house, unable to move.

The first voice she heard was her daughter Violet screaming, ''Mommy, I can't breathe." The words came from a distance as if her daughter, who had been sleeping next to her, had landed far away.

Then there was silence. Tara Carey, thinking her whole family was dead, asked God to take her quickly.

She heard someone screaming, ''We're going to die. We're going to die."

It was her husband, but in a high-pitched voice she had never heard from him before. She feared that maybe he was burning alive.

Then she heard people outside, and she could tell her husband was moving around, fighting to free himself from the debris. They couldn't see each other, but he happened to pull on a blanket that gave her a tiny supply of fresh air. She told him to keep tugging.

She could hardly move. Except for one hand.

Reaching out, she touched her daughter Iris's head. She knew it was Iris because of her short bangs. The little girl didn't move or make a sound.

It's almost as if there's no life in her, she thought.

Also smothered in debris, Heath Carey could hear one of his daughters -- he couldn't tell which one -- fighting to breathe.

Then she went quiet.

Minutes passed, and he was finally able to free himself. Breaking away pieces of plaster on one side of him, he backed away from the futon and his feet felt the ground. He saw his wife's leg sticking out and he pulled her into a small pocket of space in the wreckage.

Tara Carey looked out of a hole in the rubble and saw a firefighter outside. She asked him, ''Should I go back in?" No, he told her. Keep coming toward him.

She told herself she wouldn't be able to do anything if she tried to go back in and that rescuers would have tools to do more. But she wanted to go back anyway. Keep moving, the firefighter told her.

As they crawled from the ruins of the house, the Careys tried to direct rescue workers to where they thought their daughters were, but the girls had been thrown from their bedtime positions by the explosion.

The Careys tried to stay, but rescue workers led them away and wouldn't let them return.

'There's people in there'The blast blew open the front door of the police station that was just a few buildings over and across the street, startling the dispatcher, who thought the station had been hit by lightning. The windows of both the Sovereign Bank and the Star Package Store across the street were shattered.

Just seconds before, Janet Webster had been connected to the local dispatcher as she reported the gas smell. She had driven her family across the street in the Toyota SUV where they had sought refuge after leaving the house. All four watched their home explode.

Matthew Webster described it as the loudest noise he had ever heard.

The blast rocked the Websters' car onto its two right wheels. Matthew's window air conditioner hurtled across the street, smashing the rear window of their car. The roof and the top of the house landed in the street.

''There's people in there," Matthew screamed over and over. He thought no one would survive.

Moments later, the Websters watched Richard Maijs scramble out of what used to be Hayley's bedroom window.

Next, the third-floor residents came out. Defreitas, Compos, who was nine months pregnant, and their son, Bryan, escaped.

All the survivors were soon moved to the police station as rescue workers started to worry about another blast.

It quickly became apparent that two people were still missing: Violet and Iris Carey.

Hopkinton Fire Lieutenant Francis M. Clark climbed into the wreckage to search. He crawled into what had been the second floor, into a void that was about 5 feet wide and 3 feet high. There, after breaking through the plaster hanging over him, he found Iris lying on her left side, pinned in place by a beam, her legs covered by a blanket. He found no vital signs.

Ashland firefighter Peter M. Stone followed Clark into the collapsed house, which was shrouded in clouds of plaster dust. He discovered Violet under a blanket and a heap of 2 by 4's and plaster, three feet from her sister. A dresser pinned her to the futon. He checked for signs of life and found no pulse, no respiration.

EpilogueIn October 2002, the Careys sued NStar Gas Co., which piped the natural gas into the building, for the wrongful deaths of their daughters and other claims in Middlesex Superior Court. The company has 225,000 residential gas customers in the state.

The lawsuit also blames landlords Leonard and Anne-Marie Pearson, and Inner-Tite Corp., the maker of a part used in the house's gas system. The case is scheduled to go to trial later this year.

All the defendants deny responsibility for the explosion.

NStar spokesman Mike Durand insists that natural gas is a safe fuel and the company does everything in its power to make sure equipment is well maintained and up-to-date.

''We never want to lose sight of the tragic loss the Careys experienced, and we will never forget what happened that day," he said.

Heath and Tara Carey did not want to be interviewed for this story, though they provided a written statement and told the story of that night in depositions for their lawsuit that their attorneys made available to the Globe.

The Careys had a son on Oct. 15, 2003, and they are expecting another baby. Although they have begun to rebuild their lives, they said in their statement that nothing will ever be the same.

''We did have a son . . . and we are expecting a daughter in May. We are so fortunate to have the ability to have other children in our lives but one child does not replace one lost and we will always be missing our Violet and Iris," they wrote.

The Websters say the loss of virtually everything they owned and the trauma of their brush with death pale in comparison with the Careys' losses.

And Janet Webster said she is still haunted by the blast and by questions about what she could have done differently. On her daily commute she drives by the site, where a new apartment building now stands in the old one's place.

''The hardest thing for me is that no one has taken responsibility," she said, adding that she has not ruled out filing a lawsuit herself. ''It can't just be a freak thing that happened."

She said that night will forever be part of who she is and who her children are, and it has taught her a difficult lesson about life and death.

''Anything could happen. And so, try as I might to protect my kids and to be there for them and to make sure all our ducks are in a row, in a flash it's all gone and you have no control," she said.

''There's almost a freedom in that -- of letting go, and so enjoying every moment and each day and loving them as best as I can and making sure they know how much I love them. Because tomorrow might not be for us."

This account is based on interviews with Janet Webster; her daughters, Emily and Hayley; and her son, Matthew; on depositions by Heath and Tara Carey and Richard Maijs in the Careys' lawsuit against NStar and other parties; on other documents from that case; on a state report on the explosion that included written statements from some survivors; on local Fire Department incident reports; and on a 911 tape provided by the Police Department. Weather information is from AccuWeather.com. The Careys also provided a written statement but declined to be interviewed. Richard Maijs declined to be interviewed. Antonio Defreitas and Poliana Compos and their son, Bryan, could not be reached for interviews. Thoughts and feelings were attributed to people in this story based on their own statements.Lisa Kocian can be reachedat 508-820-4231 orlkocian@globe.com.

© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.