Displaced families cope after explosion

Three-year-old Kaela Robbins only knows she can't go home.

She misses her toys and all of the other things left behind after her family was evacuated from an apartment building that suffered extensive damage in a mysterious explosion Monday afternoon.

"It's been kind of hard on her," said Nikole Robbins, 26, the child's mother. "The first night she had nightmares."

The explosion created a nightmare for 65 people who have lost their homes, either permanently or temporarily.

The American Red Cross has put many of them up at the Nevada Palace hotel-casino on Boulder Highway, near Sam's Town. Others have been sent to other hotels. Two families have been given different apartments at the complex.

The La Fiesta apartment complex, 1492 N. Lamb Blvd., was the scene of chaos after the horrific explosion and fire that destroyed eight apartments of the 16-apartment unit.

Fire investigators are amazed no one was killed in the blast.

Three children received minor injuries from flying debris and the man who lived in the apartment where the explosion occurred, Michael McGilbra, 40, received second-degree burns to his face. He is listed in stable condition at University Medical Center's burn Unit.

Robbins said when the explosion occurred, shortly after 5 p.m., she had been gone about 15 minutes.

She had taken her boyfriend, Mike Bridges, to work. Kaela was in a day care center across the street from the complex, which opened in September.

Robbins had her 7-week old daughter, Brianna, with her.

She learned about the explosion on her way back home when news of a catastrophic event was reported on the radio.

"At first I thought something had happened at the day care center," said Robbins.

The initial report she heard was that there had been an explosion at a jewelry store at the location of the apartment complex.

"I knew there wasn't a jewelry store there, so I thought it was the day care center," she said.

What she saw when she pulled into the day care center's driveway was flames shooting out of her apartment building.

Her apartment was two down from the scene of the explosion, but the only damage to her residence seems to have been from smoke.

However, she said, it may be days before they learn whether there is any structural damage.

If the structure is damaged, she said, the managers of the complex will put them in a different apartment.

If there isn't, then the family will return to their former home.

Robbins isn't sure she wants to move back into the same apartment, whether the manager's declare it safe or not.

"My apartment was separated by a firewall from the other eight so we may be OK to live in that apartment," she said. "We've talked about moving back in. We're not sure we want to. We don't know if we will feel safe. We don't think so."

Residents were allowed in briefly Tuesday night to pick up some personal items, but Robbins doesn't know whether it will be two days or two weeks before they know where they are going to be living.

For now they are making do with the hotel room.

She was grateful to the Red Cross.

"They were just awesome," she said. "They paid for the first night in the hotel and for food for a day. They did it for all the families."

But now, she said, she is paying for the hotel room.

"Something was said about the apartment complex maybe reimbursing us," she said.

But those are problems that don't concern young Kaela.

She just wants to be able to play with her toys in her home.

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