Smoke rises April 15 after bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Photos/Les Wright

Four South Lake Tahoe residents who were in Boston for the country’s oldest marathon escaped the bombings unharmed.

Two bombs were heard going off near the finish line of the April 15 event just before noon Pacific time. Three people are confirmed dead and 144 injured.

“We were between both bombs which were 100 yards or less apart. We are back at our flat watching it on TV,” Les Wright of South Lake Tahoe said in an email to Lake Tahoe News. Wright puts on the Lake Tahoe Marathon and often travels to other races to promote his September event.

He is in Boston with his wife, Buffy, and their friend Kristin Blocher.

“We had just got through the massive crowd on the sidewalk where one of the bombs went off. I fear what the death toll will be. Earlier we were in the bleachers exactly across from the finish line first bomb in the bleachers. We had gone back to our apartment after the winners crossed and were just getting back to the finish line to see Kristin finish at around 4 hours. The bombs went off at 2:51 Boston time,” Wright said. “Kristin was running to the finish line between the two bombs. We are three very lucky people.”

Shandi Ashmore of South Lake Tahoe was also running the marathon. LTN has been notified that she was not harmed.

The race has 27,000 participants and can have nearly twice as many spectators.

The hotline for help locate friends and family is (617) 635.4500.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

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The finish line before the chaos.

The following is from the Reno Gazette-Journal:

After hearing two explosions, Frank Kight dove to the ground and mass chaos ensued.

“I heard that first explosion and my first thought was that maybe it was a festivity or cannon,” Kight, a retired Dilworth Middle School counselor from Sparks who was near the Boston Marathon finish line Monday when two explosions killed at least three and injured more than 100, said.

“When it went off I ducked and it was followed by another explosion — and at that point people were screaming. I dove to the ground and saw people screaming… It was mass chaos,” Kight said.

Shrapnel left a gash in Kight’s right calf and caught his pants on fire. His ex-wife was also taken to the hospital, where she remained after surgery to inspect a leg wound. They were in Boston to watch their daughter, Amy Blomquist, run the marathon. Blomquist was one of 33 Reno-Sparks-area runners in this year’s Boston Marathon.

There was no word on the motive or who may have carried out the attack, and police said they had no suspects in custody.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said two other bombs were found near the end of the 26.2-mile course.

The White House issued a statement Monday saying the government “will increase security around the United States as necessary,” and Reno-Tahoe International Airport spokesman Brian Kulpin said airport personnel were on a “heightened state of vigilance.”

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People scramble for cover after two explosions go off at the Boston Marathon.

The following is from the Boston Globe:

At a news conference Monday evening, Richard DesLauriers, head of the Boston office of the FBI, said the FBI was taking the lead in the probe of the blasts. “It is a criminal investigation that is a potential terrorist investigation,” he said.

Blood and broken glass covered sidewalks in the area after the blasts occurred at about 2:50pm.

“It was just immediately [evident] there were injuries, right in the middle of the spectator crowds,” said boston.com sports producer Steve Silva, who was on the scene to cover the race, normally a spectacle that is a magnet for elite athletes and determined runners from across the world.

“There was blood everywhere; there were victims being carried out on stretchers. I saw someone lose their leg. People are crying. People are confused,” Silva, who captured one of the explosions on video, said moments after the blasts.

Peter Fagenholz, a trauma surgeon, told reporters “several” people had to have limbs amputated. Doctors said those injured had metal debris embedded in their bodies, but they didn’t think that the metal was shrapnel that was built into the bombs.

“We will turn every rock over to find the people who were responsible for this,” Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said.

No suspects have been arrested, Davis said, though police were questioning many people.

Just before 8pm, a “person of interest” was being questioned at Brigham and Women’s in connection with the bombing, according to an official briefed on the investigation. The individual was hurt in the explosion, the official said. But Davis said at a mid-evening news conference attended by DesLauriers, Gov. Deval Patrick, and other officials, that “there is no suspect at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as has been widely reported.”

Neither Davis nor DesLauriers would discuss any specifics of the case.

Davis had initially said there had been a third explosion at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester. But he downplayed those comments at an afternoon news conference, suggesting that the incident might not have been an explosion and might have been a fire.