After the massive house explosion in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday, residents are assessing the damage and recalling what they described as the suspect’s suspicious behavior.
About a dozen homes were damaged and residents around the destroyed house on N. Burlington Street have had to find someplace else to stay.
Tracy and David Mitchell, who live across from the house, filled up bags with necessities to take to a hotel.
“Just gotta grab whatever you think you need,” David Mitchell said outside on Wednesday.
He said he felt lucky in comparison to the family who lived on the other side of the duplex now reduced to rubble.
“Considering what the Smith family’s going through, we got it easy. We’ve got to clean things up. They don’t have anything to clean up. They don’t have anything,” David Mitchell said.
The family was evacuated from their home before the explosion. News4 spoke with them by phone and they declined an interview right away.
“Everything they have in their life was in that house,” neighbor Cory Jarvis said.
Neighbors said they noticed unusual packages at suspect James Yoo’s house in the months leading up to the blast. They said they saw doomsday magazines and what they thought were huge cans of lighter fluid.
Investigators are still working to determine what caused the blast that police believe killed Yoo after an hourslong standoff with police. He is believed to have fired dozens of flare gun shots into the air on Monday afternoon and then to have fired gunshots at police as they entered his home.
Neighbors said they never had any notable interactions with Yoo. He had tin foil or another material blocking all of the windows on his side of the duplex.
The FBI said Tuesday they were aware of Yoo’s social media activity, which included conspiracy theories.
Jarvis said he was once inside the Smiths’ home and they heard something bizarre through the wall, coming from Yoo’s home.
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“I can’t explain it. I don’t know if he was running a machine or something. It was weird. This was months ago – six, seven months ago,” he said.
At Arlington’s central library, support is available for families who need it, including care packages for pets and children.
