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Thanksgiving explosion alarms Hanover Twp. residents

HANOVER TOWNSHIP, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Many in Hanover Township began their Thanksgiving with an alarming, explosion-like sound that was felt throughout the area, but what caused it is a bit of a mystery.

Residents of Hanover Township began their Thanksgiving celebrations with turkey, mashed potatoes, and an unexpected explosion.

The explosion-like quake happened around 11:30 a.m. Thursday morning and those who live on Halliday Court felt and heard it all.

“My wife and I were sitting in our kitchen and we were getting everything ready for thanksgiving dinner and all of a sudden it was just like a loud explosion went off. It shook our house, it shook our windows in the back of our house,” said Hanover Township resident Sean Elias.

“The entire house just shook. I’m hearing impaired so I couldn’t tell the direction of where it was coming from but there was also the loud noise, whether it was a boom or explosion I couldn’t really tell,” Dave Jenkins of Hanover Township said.

But they didn’t see anything.

“Got outside because we wanted to see if there was an explosion or a plume of smoke or something and there wasn’t anything,” Kathy Jenkins of Hanover Township said.

“We were at the house and we just heard a bang and we came outside but we didn’t really see anything. Just looked around, I thought maybe there’d be smoke or something but I didn’t see anything,” said Jim Koneski of Hanover Township.

Hanover Township Police checked out a wooded area where people say they heard the blast, but say no evidence of an explosion was found.

The mysterious explosion-like sensation was experienced by Hanover Township residents within a several mile radius, and they do have an idea of what it could have been.

“It was like an explosion or something,” Koneski said.

“We’re thinking now it might have been an earthquake because there was no smoke, there was nothing that we could see that would have caused a loud noise like that. Yeah and to cover 10 miles from top to bottom of the valley, that’s a lot of territory,” Dave and Kathy said.

The source of the explosion felt throughout parts of Luzerne County from Ashley, to Pittston, remains unknown.

“It was like a bomb went off in the neighborhood,” Elias said.

Police say there will be no active investigation into what caused the loud quake because no one was injured and nothing was damaged.