OCONOMOWOC, Wis. --
Wayne Goetsch stood on a street corner behind a line of yellow police tape and shook his head.
Half a block away, standing precariously amid a pile of rubble and wreckage, stood a red brick bell tower - all that remained of the First Baptist Church that served his family for three generations.
"My grandfather and grandmother got married there. My ma and dad got married there," he sighed. "I was baptized there, and so were my three brothers. It's sad."
The church and two adjacent houses were destroyed Wednesday in an explosion and fire after a reported natural gas leak in this lakeside community some 30 miles west of Milwaukee. Seven people were treated for injuries, including three firefighters and a utility worker.
"I was shocked - I just couldn't believe it," said Goetsch, a 57-year-old machinist. "I just had to come down and see the devastation for myself."
City and county officials said their investigation into the blast was hampered by thick white smoke that continued to billow for at least three hours from the site where the church stood for nearly a century.
Road and sewer work had been going on in the area, said city spokesman Bob Duffy, the economic development director for Oconomowoc.
Brian Manthey, a spokesman for We Energies, said the utility received a call from a contractor around 12:30 p.m. saying workers smelled gas and may have hit a line. A company crew arrived onsite about 1 p.m.
At 1:26 p.m., something sparked an explosion residents felt blocks away. Five workers were knocked down by the blast or by flying debris, Duffy said.
The church was reportedly empty at the time.
Steve Nichols, 31, was baby-sitting his 5-year-old nephew across the street from the church when the explosion shook his home, sending knickknacks flying from shelves.
"It was like the loudest, most scariest thing," he said. "(My nephew) just looked at me and his eyes were like, 'What was that?'"
Nichols rushed outside with a video camera and saw the thick clouds of white smoke swirling around the bell tower.
The tower, about three stories high, was an iconic part of the church, which was built in 1913. That it withstood the blast was a small measure of comfort to the church's 35 members, said the Rev. Sam Brink, who has served as a temporary pastor there since January.
"We always rang that bell to start the worship and now it's still standing," he said. "There's a certain symbolism there - it starts us, and now it's still there at the end."
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Associated Press writers Carrie Antlfinger and James Carlson in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
