At 10:35 a.m. on April 11, at the moment a massive natural gas explosion thundered over Lovitt Way in Spring Garden, Robin Troy was setting her groceries down on her living room floor. At that same moment, Angie Lewis was out getting her hair cut, Jean McCoy was working in Squirrel Hill cleaning a house and Ray Glatz was miles away in his McCandless nursing home.

The blast was so loud that Ms. Troy thought her roof had caved in. Fearing for two sons upstairs, she dropped her grocery bag, smashing all but one of her dozen eggs. Then she ran outside and saw the black cloud rising.

Two houses were instantly leveled by the explosion, three more were condemned and demolished, nearly 20 houses were damaged and more than three months after the dust settled, Spring Garden residents are still piecing their lives back together.

Mr. Glatz, Ms. McCoy, Ms. Lewis and Ms. Troy all lived on the block where the explosion occurred.

Mr. Glatz, in whose home investigators said the blast occurred, lost everything. "The only clothes I got are the clothes I wore," he said. For his loss, he received "not a penny's worth."

Battling lung cancer, he has lived in a nursing home for eight months. Before the explosion he was planning on moving back into his house at 845 Lovitt Way.

Ms. McCoy, whose house was knocked off its foundation and eventually demolished, no longer lives in Spring Garden; after six weeks staying with her son, she found a new home on the North Side. She was able to save some of her belongings, but she can count a dizzying array of items that she was unable to retrieve because her house was condemned: her stove, china closet, televisions, computers, furniture and personal papers are just the beginning.

"I still owe a lot of people money that helped me out," she said. "I didn't receive anything as far as my possessions being compensated."

Ms. Lewis, who has lived on Lovitt Way for more than 50 years, lost all of her windows -- at least 14 were shattered by the explosion. It has cost her $6,000 out of pocket to replace them; insurance paid for only $1,000 of the damage.

"I'm a widow by myself here," she said. "That's a lot of money. My attic, my bathroom were all torn down."

Ms. Troy suffered the least damage of the four neighbors. Her screen door and one side window were shattered.

"We lost a couple of years off of our lives," she said, but her family and pets were safe. "Somebody was watching over us."

In the weeks after the explosion, the Community Alliance of Spring Garden and East Deutschtown organized a relief fund to help pay for damages, many of which were not covered by insurance.

The fund is administered by the Northside Leadership Conference, which is currently accepting general donations as well as those earmarked for specific individuals.

The only disbursements made so far have been small donations for Ms. McCoy, but Mark Fatla, executive director of the NLC, said it will start accepting claims later this year.

"There's no way we'll be able to raise enough to cover everybody's loss," he said. "Ultimately it's only going to be able to give people a fraction of what their damages are."

He said the fund is a small -- but important -- comfort.

"A low-income community banding together to help other low-income residents: That shows a lot of heart and caring in neighborhood," he said.

Today, the properties across from where 845 and 847 Lovitt Way once stood are boarded up. The empty lots are overgrown with knee-high grass. On a recent afternoon, construction workers repairing the back of a house on Suismon Street, the next street over, were the only people in sight.

"It's kind of weird to walk down the street," said Ms. Troy. "It's definitely quiet down here now."

Checks payable to the East Deutschtown Explosion Relief Fund may be sent care of the Northside Leadership Conference to 4 Allegheny Center, Suite 601, Pittsburgh 15212.