Explosion at JJ's Restaurant on Plaza in Kansas City 'felt like a bomb,' nearby resident says

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Laura Schulz lives a block away from the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo.

She said an explosion that sparked a massive fire at JJ’s Restaurant shook her right off of her couch in her living room.

“It was an enormous explosion,” Schulz said by phone in a live interview on our sister station KSHB. “I at first thought it was a transformer near the new building and the construction. But it was bigger than that.”

Schulz said she heard several other explosions after the initial blast.

“I heard glass falling in the kitchen. It felt like a bomb went off. That’s how powerful it was,” she said. “By the time I got to the back porch, I was shaking.”

She said when she looked toward JJ’s, she saw people covered in soot.

“ I just don’t know how many people were in there or if they got out,” she said.