GROTON — The house on Willowdale Road meant so much to Valerie and David Fitzgerald.
The location was ideal. It was halfway between Valerie’s family in Hudson, Mass., and David’s in Burlington.
The young couple bought the two-bedroom home three months before their September 2005 marriage and started the dirty work of renovating it.
With the help of family members, they gutted the first floor and turned it into a cozy home on a dead-end street near the center of town.
After marrying, they moved in and settled into community life. David joined the Fire Department as a call-firefighter.
“We put a lot of work in the house and loved it,” Valerie Fitzgerald said yesterday. “It had old pine floors and some of them were crooked, that’s what we loved about it. … It’s so sad,” she said.
A KeySpan contractor accidentally punctured a service line for natural gas leading to the house while doing routine survey work on Dec. 11, said KeySpan’s parent company National Grid. A supervisor called 911 but the house exploded before firefighters could get there.
Just about the only thing left standing in the house was the stairway.
Friends at Andy’s Auto and at Groton Hair Inc. called David Fitzgerald, who’s an electrician, to tell him they believed the house that blew up was his.
As he rushed home, he turned on his Fire Department radio and listened. Before long, it was obvious the other firefighters were talking about his home, Valerie said.
David had to call Valerie at work in Sudbury to tell her the news.
“I’m doing alright. I have my moments,” Valerie said yesterday. “We both weren’t in the house, we have our kitties, so we’ll be alright.”
The couple’s cats, Oscar and Lilly, are amazing stories of survival.
Oscar rushed from the burning remains as firefighters worked to quell the blaze, but Lilly was missing and presumed dead for two days.
Then a demolition worker clearing the rubble found the cat buried, dehydrated but alive.
Despite escaping the ruins before Lilly, Oscar suffered the worst injuries.
Lilly is back with the family but Oscar’s paws were badly burned and he was resisting Valerie’s efforts to apply medicine, so he went back to Belvidere Veterinary Hospital in Lowell yesterday where he’s staying for more treatment.
“Everything else is looking fine,” Valerie Fitzgerald said.
Despite their personal loss, the Fitzgeralds know how dangerous the explosion was for the neighborhood.
“We’re actually thankful nobody else was outside at the time,” Valerie Fitzgerald said. “There are a lot of stay-at-home moms and kids in that neighborhood.”
They’ve been moved by the generosity of neighbors, friends and family who have donated to a relief fund and offered other essentials, like clothing.
“We’re both extremely grateful for that,” Valerie Fitzgerald said.
The Fitzgeralds have resolved to rebuild their home.
Emergency workers were able to save some precious family pictures, and David had others stored online, so they have before-and-after photos of the renovation work to show the insurance company. A filing cabinet blew out of the house during the explosion so receipts for the work weren’t burned, Valerie Fitzgerald said.
The couple wants to rent a home in Groton so they can be nearby during the rebuilding.
