Last night around 6 PM in San Bruno. So far 4 people and one dog confirmed dead, about 50 houses destroyed, a number hospitalized, some critical. The woman who works next to me lives in San Bruno but over the hill from the explosion. Her house is fine but she said the stink in the air is awful. I can see the smoke from where I work. Several coworkers are in the hospital and one is not accounted for. Rescue workers still have to sift through the debris of destroyed homes looking for bodies. IMO, whatever firefighters are paid, it's not enough.
The pipe was installed in 1948. Residents had been reporting gas leaks for 3 weeks and PG&E told them not to worry and if it annoyed them to close the garage doors. They said they did not have money to replace the pipe but spent $43 million fighting a ballot initiative to allow public utilities. This was an accident waiting to happen.
This happened about a mile from me. I was evacuated but my house was far from harm's way. My friend's parents live on the street where the explosion occurred and I actually used to live on that street but much further down when I was a kid. They're pretty sure their house is ok though which is good but DAMN have you guys seen the footage? There are whole clumps of houses just completely gone. Nothing left except maybe a chimney and the metal skeleton of what was a car. Took them a few hours to finally shut the gas pipe off (fucking ridiculous). 4 reported deaths and 0 reported missing persons but I get the idea the death toll will rise. The houses close by are reduced to ash, I can only imagine an explosion that big (my friend described it as "a fire four stories high" and reports say 60-80 feet in the air and the hole in the ground from the explosion is 60 feet by 30 feet) would leave anyone close by virtually cremated thus difficult to count immediately. At this point organization is still somewhat lacking and there are media reports of people saying their family who lives there has been missing, I reckon they're holding out a while longer before making an official missing person report. My friend on the street said his room shook and the windows rattled then everything turned tinted red and the explosion happened. Went outside and saw the "four story fire" and some houses that existed seconds before were now gone. Seems like all interviews on TV are remarkably consistent. My friend did say he didn't smell any gas in the weeks prior and doesn't know anyone who did either. I have personally driven by the explosion location probably 5 times in the last 3 weeks and never noticed anything. I was in my car but the guy who first said it in a TV interview seemed to have lived in the next neighborhood over probably several hundred yards away at the very minimum. My friend said (and I agree) that he thinks its a case of someone saying some BS like that and then others saying "ya know what ya I think I did smell that". The way everyone describes it is that it felt like an earthquake for a while and had a noise like an airplane (San Bruno is RIGHT next to the airport so this is common) and then the massive explosion happened. Again all reports are remarkably consistent in this regard. Seems to me like the initial leak and the explosion were more likely just seconds apart as in these accounts as opposed to a slow leak occuring weeks before. This was a HIGH pressure 30" pipe spewing 80 foot flames. I would guess that the second it tore it began shaking the ground and the explosion followed soon after. Its insane down here. An area I'm very familiar with basically just got demolished and I'm positive that some people died in unbelievable fashion. It was so explosive and so heavily feuled that people near the explosion had no chance to get out like in a normal fire. People hundreds of yards away were saying the heat was unbearable so I can't even imagine being close to it. Check out this excerpt from the San Jose Merc: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_16038268?source=rss People reported seeing the bumpers of cars being melted off from the heat as they were running away (there are now pictures of things like this floating around). One guy said when the explosion happened he tried to run inside but when he pushed his door it was melting and burned his hands. Insanity. What a horrible way to go. What a horrible thing to happen in a highly populated area. Its very strange being a life long San Bruno resident to all of a sudden see us as the top story on Yahoo and reported on CNN. One of those situations where you see some local tragedy on the national news and don't think much of it and assume it'll never happen to you and then it hits blocks away from my childhood home. Very surreal.
BTW some guy from the NTSP (National Transportation something-or-other....) did a press conference saying they were running a federal case on the pipe, any time it was inspected, worked on, who worked on it, how they were trained, if they were intoxicated, etc. etc. etc. basically every possible angle regarding the pipe to get to the bottom of it. Seems like they're thorough as hell and ready to fuck shit up but he said he couldn't put a date on when the investigation would be done but threw out that he "[doesn't] know whether it'll be 14 months, 16 months, 18 months"...It'll be a while. He did say if anything big came up he would release it immediately as opposed to waiting for the completion of the investiagtion. PG&E donated $1 million. Google has donated $50,000 so far (their youtube offices are in SB right down the street). Levi is donating jeans and $100 gift cards to displaced families and Safeway is giving giftcards and food to displaced families because these happened so fast people literally had no time even to run in and grab their most valued possessions let alone clothes, food, etc. They mostly just ran with the clothes on their back. The SF Giants have dedicated their 9/14 game vs. the Dodgers to the fire victims and will give $3 of every ticket sold to the Bay Area Red Cross. I believe the A's are doing something as well. Lol the acting governer (Arny is out of the country) said he talked with Barack and hes got his eye on San Bruno. I just saw video of Maria Shriver and some local senators also in San Bruno at my beloved Rec Center Bball court. This shit is unreal.
You all should watch the HBO documentary on the natural gas company, good old GW really fucked everyone over with some laws that basically protect the companies from any litigation. Pretty sweet! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtpSgqUZ3oA
San Fran is a match waiting to be struck... I hope to god they never have a quake like the one back in 1906. It won't be pretty.
One of my coworkers is still missing. The company is offering a lot of assistance to their displaced employees and considering making a donation to Red Cross. I know people are wise after the fact, "I was sure I smelled gas!", but if anyone reported smelling gas, that would be on record. The SF Chronicle yesterday profiled a couple of the folks who died. A lifelong resident of the area and her 13 year old daughter both died. A 20 year old college student was watching TV with her boyfriend when they heard the blast. He went outside to investigate and that's how long it took for the house to go up in flames. The man was badly burned trying unsuccessfully to get his girlfriend out.
They have found the coworker. All are accounted for but two have totally lost homes. Meanwhile a 3-generation family (woman in 80s, man in 50s, boy in teens) are still missing. And of course the obligatory letter to the editor from self-described Christian citing the explosion as divine venegeance against San Francisco because the city is too liberal & has too many gays and lesbians. Why his god would extract vengeance against San Francisco by blowing up a town 15 miles away is unclear, but smug hate spewing bigots don't need logic or facts.
