Houston Explosion Collapses Building Onto 15 Corvettes Worth One Million Dollars

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Houston Corvette Services’ Gordon Andrus is still waiting to get inside to see the full extent of the damage.

A Friday evening explosion in Houston’s northwest suburbs flattened buildings belonging to Gordon Andrus. Andrus, the owner of Houston Corvette Services, lost two buildings in the blast. The deadly explosion at Watson Grinding and Manufacturing happened right across from Andrus’ facilities and trapped over a dozen cars inside.

Speaking to CNN, Andrus commented about the inaccessible cars within the crumbled buildings. He said, “I don’t think they are destroyed but the buildings will have to be torn down.” The scene of the explosion is still cordoned off for investigation. Accessing the Corvettes will take time.

Andrus’ personal vehicles were also in the destroyed buildings, but his concerns are elsewhere. Andrus hopes to set up temporarily in his two other buildings, which house facilities for paint and bodywork. All customers whose cars are affected by the blast have been contacted. His selflessness also extends to his employees, because he wants to access payroll information in order to keep his employees paid. Andrus added, “Every car is insured, and we’re in the business of repairing and restoring cars. We will make it right one way or another.” There’s no word on the specific Corvettes housed in the buildings, or the how complete their restoration was. We do know there are 15 Corvettes with a combined worth of about $1M dollars.

In a way, these Corvettes now have an additional note in their history. Acts of God certainly haven’t decreased values in Corvettes either. We witnessed this firsthand with the sinkhole that took out a number of Corvettes at the National Corvette Museum years ago. If anything, those Corvettes now have an additional provenance. They might not be original anymore, but now they have a footnote that few other Corvettes can replicate.

We wish Andrus the best in his efforts in getting his business back up and running. As well, our thoughts are with the families of those most affected by the explosion.

Photos: CNN

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