by Paula Ebben, CBS Boston (Ch4)
It has been a year since the Merrimack Valley Explosions; a year of tragedy and triumph for Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera, leading his city through an unimaginable odyssey and the emotional aftermath.
Sitting down with WBZ’s Paula Ebben, Rivera reflected on the blur of a year that, for this Army veteran, seemed to begin in slow motion.
On September 18, 2018, Rivera recalls getting a call from the police chief about multiple gas explosions. He immediately rushed back from a training session in Boston.
“It wasn’t ‘til I got to the scene over on Chickering Road and I saw the destruction and the kind of mayhem that people were running around that I thought, you know, this is a bigger disaster than I ever thought would be happening.”