By LARRY GRARD

Times Record Staff

BATH

Betty’s Homestyle Cooking, located at 162 Front St., is collecting money and clothes to help Kenneth Hooper, who became homeless early Tuesday morning when an explosion blew up a duplex at 29 and 31 Bluff Road.

Nancy Santiago, who works at Betty’s, said this morning that Hooper is staying with his mother, Marlene Hooper, in Brunswick. His aunt, Betty Kane, owns the restaurant.

The explosion killed a woman who lived in the adjacent apartment to Hooper, on 31 Bluff Road.

Santiago said that Hooper had just taken a job at McDonald’s, and left for work at 4 a.m. — an hour before the building burned to the ground.