Disbelief on South Lake Drive; Sunday morning explosion takes life of Du Quoin man, Harold Pundsack, age 83

State Fire Marshal Bruce Dahlem and Du Quoin Fire Chief Bob Shaw may never know the exact cause of an unimaginable explosion at 9:25 a.m. Sunday that leveled the home of Harold Pundsack, 83, on South Lake Drive in the upscale Fair Acres subdivision. The explosion—heard as far away as Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park at Rend Lake—claimed Pundsack's life and carried a 200-foot tall plume of debris over a four-block area. As daughter Debbie Olinger was escorted by friends and firemen up to what was left of her father's home—and there was very little—she somehow found solace in his life well lived as those friends talked of his infectious smile, the fact that he never met a stranger and how he loved to dance. Oh, how he loved to dance. In fact, he was at Derby's Community Center, once the Perry County Senior Center, only last weekend doing what he loves to do—dance. Pundsack was a widower, losing his wife several years ago. It makes no sense that his great life as a veteran of the 101st Airborne Division and 502nd Infantry Division (D Company 3rd Platoon) after WWII should end with military and family photos raining down on the neighborhood that surrounded his brick home. Longtime neighbor Don Barrett—the back of his home faced the side of Pundsack's home—said he and wife Loretta were sitting in their living room during the explosion. "It was like a bomb going off," he said. The explosion blew the glass out of their kitchen and garage windows and damaged the set of patio doors into the living room. "It would have been bad if we had been in the kitchen; there is glass everywhere." Firemen say the explosion blew a window out of a home across the street, hitting the back of a chair that a woman was sitting in. EMTs from the Pinckneyville Ambulance Service painstakingly and very thoughtfully went door-to-door to see if anyone was hurt. Shortly after the blast Barrett moved his wife Loretta to the porch of their backyard shop. Above her, debris from the blast had ripped the blades off of an outside ceiling fan and damaged the wooden ceiling of that porch. To the Barrett's' immediate south on Madison Street, the blast tore out the back door and windows of the Korbar home, bouncing the frame from the foundation. It is heavily damaged. The Bob and Barb Conte home next door on South Lake Drive saw damage, as did the Chuck Smith house across the street. Northeast across the street the Walter Naumer and Mary Lou Morris homes were hit by debris. Read more: http://www.dailyamericannews.com/article/20130812/NEWS/130819968#ixzz2bsmJzf00