Grace Porter’s home at 8 Coronation Terrace in Willington, County Durham was ruined and she was forced out when the house next door exploded in a fireball on June 24, leaving it as a heap of rubble.
She was set to move out for good that day and has never been allowed back into her home – which was full of prized possessions including family photos and her kids’ toys – to take any belongings since, being left with just the clothes on her back.
On Wednesday (January 8) at 3.09pm the 35-year-old found out by email her home was due to be demolished within hours with everything she owned still inside after asking the landlord for an update.
Grace Porter outside the wreck of her Willington home. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)
Grace raced from her new home in Richmond, North Yorkshire to Willington this morning where she found contractors throwing family photos, her kids’ teddy bears and clothes into a skip.
She burst into tears as she told the “shocked” demolition workers what had happened and they halted work.
Speaking outside the wreck of her old home Grace told the Echo: “If I hadn’t sent an email yesterday (January 8) asking for an update I would have been none the wiser that my house and all our possessions were going to be demolished.
“It’s just by chance that I sent that email. I’d seen an article in the Echo, and wanted to know what to expect. I then had a reply saying the house was being demolished tomorrow.
Demolition workers moved in this week to flatten the two mid-terraced homes. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)
“They’ve told me nobody can go in, not even the contractors, they couldn’t even carry out a survey, nothing is salvageable, yet I turn up today and watch as my house is taken down bit by bit. Cleared out.”
An email sent to Grace by a loss assessor on Wednesday and seen by The Northern Echo says: “No one is permitted to enter the site. Not even the Contractors”.
“I just peered around the fence and said I need to please speak to somebody,” the marketing officer continued.
“I said, ‘this is my house and these are all of my things’. I just got upset as I started to notice what was in the skip.
Grace among her possessions in the skip. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)
“They (the contractors) were visibly shocked. One said, ‘I feel so awful, I’ve been smashing up your house. I saw everything in there and assumed you’d received a payout’. I just started crying and became an emotional wreck.
“My children’s clothes were poking out, my children’s teddy bears, artwork, family photographs, items that are smashed and destroyed, pictures off the wall, even my car keys.
Grace with one of her kids’ teddy bears which had been thrown in a skip by contractors. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)
“I was astonished they’d been given this instruction to remove everything yet I’d been told nothing can be salvaged and everything was damaged.”
“They lied to me. There’s no compassion there whatsoever. I’m under no illusion that I could have everything back, I know that isn’t the case. But somebody just to communicate would have been nice.”
In another email, Grace is asked if she is a resident on the street.
“They clearly don’t know who I am or that there’s a house there full of my possessions,” she added.
(Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)
The brick-by-brick demolition will now begin tomorrow (Friday, January 10), and is expected to take six weeks.
Her neighbour’s home at 7 Coronation Terrace, was reduced to ruins by the blast in the early hours of June 24 morning.
The scene of devastation last June after the blast. (Image: TERRY BLACKBURN)
Luckily, Grace had decided to stay at a friend’s the night before as her two daughters were at their dad’s after a day at Flamingo Land, so they were not at home at the time. She woke to find calls from police and pictures of her house in tatters online.
Her neighbour, a man in his 40s, is understood to have suffered serious burns to most of his body in the blast and spent months in hospital, and his Alsatian, named Kaiser, died.
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Some residents have moved, and one is left needing therapy after suffering PTSD in the aftermath.
Last month Northern Gas Networks issued an apology to residents who complained of waking every morning to a scene which brought back memories of the horror explosion.
Graces’ landlord Homes Or Houses and loss adjustors Your Claim have been contacted for comment but did not respond before publication.