David Garth of San Francisco was in his car in Oakland on Feb. 9 when he got a text from a neighbor asking if he was OK.

“I had no idea what he was talking about,” Garth said. “He said there’d been a big explosion.”

Garth and his family lived right next door to the Sunset District house that blew up and collapsed on Thursday, starting a massive conflagration that punched a hole in the Garth family’s home, setting it on fire. Authorities believe it was caused by a drug-making operation gone wrong.

Garth, his wife and 6-year-old daughter, members of Orthodox synagogue Adath Israel, have rented the single-family home on 22nd Avenue for eight years and would walk the short distance to the shul on Noriega Street. The day of the explosion, his wife was at work and his daughter at school.

“We are very grateful to be alive,” Garth said. “Had we been home, we well might not be.”

The explosion occurred at 9:20 a.m., rattling the neighborhood and creating huge clouds of dark smoke. Car doors flew open, and windows and garages on adjacent houses blew out into the street. Rabbi Joel Landau of Adath Israel heard it from four blocks away.

“You could feel the impact of the boom,” Landau said.

The explosion caused a fireball to burst through the wall into his kitchen, Garth said, incinerating some items and rendering others twisted and broken, including some heavy brass menorahs. There is almost no space between homes in the Sunset District, in particular.

“It blew an enormous hole in the side of our house,” he said.

 

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The fire department allowed Garth inside one time to retrieve a few things, but he said almost everything was destroyed or unusable.

Police have arrested Garth’s next-door neighbor, Darron Price, and charged him with involuntary manslaughter — a woman believed to be his wife died in the house — two counts of child endangerment, and manufacturing narcotics, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Garth, who is English, said he had a distant if affable relationship with Price, who he said is Australian.

“I chit-chatted with him a little bit, said good morning and talked about the weather,” he said.

Garth and his wife, Sarah (Nang) Phommavongsay, now face the challenge of rebuilding their lives. As Orthodox Jews, they want to stay within walking distance of Adath Israel. They have to replace nearly everything they’ve acquired since living in the house, including all of their daughter’s belongings. Garth said it’s been hard for her, but that she was holding up.

“She’s cried,” he said. “She misses her bed and she misses her home.”

The family has seen immediate support from their communities. The preschool where Phommavongsay teaches, Learning Bridge, has set up a fundraiser, and Adath Israel is also taking donations for the family through PayPal or Zelle (note in the comments that the funds are for the family).

“It’s going to be a challenge, but the most important thing is we’re all safe and uninjured,” Garth said. “And that could easily have been different.”