More than a year has passed since an explosion tore through a Santa Maria neighborhood, damaging multiple homes. Now, the owner of the home at the center of the blast has filed a lawsuit.
Santa Maria resident Mark Amion still remembers the day like it was yesterday.
“I still think about that explosion... Not just a loud pop, but like a bang, a loud bang," Amion says.
It was his own security camera that captured the explosion in August 2023—a video that’s been widely shared since.
"You saw it on there," Amion says. "It was shaking real bad.”
As the Jackie Lane neighborhood works to regain a sense of normalcy, construction continues at the site where it all happened.
Recently, Gloria Scozzari, a resident in her 90s and the owner of one of the homes damaged in the explosion, filed a lawsuit.
According to her claim, the disaster was a result of “negligence” when city firefighters disconnected a gas stove but didn’t cap the gas line, leaving it open for three weeks before the explosion.
Scozzari’s lawsuit names multiple parties: The City of Santa Maria, Southern California Gas Company, Aclara Technologies, the maker of the smart meter used at the property, and Sempra.
She claims they all failed to prevent or detect the leak and that the smart meter, meant to alert SoCalGas to any gas leaks, either malfunctioned or didn’t alert anyone in time.
In the lawsuit, Scozzari seeks compensation for medical expenses, incidental damages, loss of income and other losses, though it doesn’t specify an amount.
KSBY reached out to all parties named in the lawsuit, including Scozzari herself, but so far, has only received a response from the City of Santa Maria, which stated they don’t comment on pending litigation.
