My husband’s aunt and uncle live in that neighborhood. The fire was stopped literally across the street from their house. Aunt was home alone at the time of the explosion - 2-3 blocks away. Her front windows cracked and the interior blinds melted from the heat. She sustained mild burns from the radiant heat. She grabbed the dog, got in the car and self evacuated to a nearby mall where others were gathering. Last I heard they weren’t allowed in yet. They know the house is standing (we’ve seen it on the news!) but have no idea what damage it’s received or the status of their cat, whom she couldn’t find in the evac.
Was a scary night till we heard from them. We’re about 15 miles from the site and yesterday when the wind was right I could smell the smoke.
The more information that gets out the more it sounds like PG&E will have a lot to answer for.
I work in Daly City, only a few miles from the explosion. I didn’t hear it, but some guy came into my store, and said, “See that smoke? Plane Crash in San Bruno!”
It looked almost like a fricking atomic bomb cloud. HUGE plume of smoke. I figured it must have been a huge passenger jet or something.
As bad as it is, I’m glad it WASN’T a plane crash…
I heard that the people living in this neighbourhood kept reporting, to the company, that they could smell rotten eggs, for like a couple of weeks. They sent out a truck, at some point, to check it out. They told one guy, who asked what was up, when he saw the truck, to go back into his house and close his doors and stay there. That was days before the explosion. He did as he was told, and after a few hours, came out to see what was going on, only to discover, the truck gone. No one bothered to tell him anything, nor did they bother to evacuate any of the homes.
Is it the same PG&E from the Erin Brockovitch story?
Yep. Also the same PG&E that was the primary sponsor behind Proposition 16 earlier this year that would have cemented its monopoly. (It was defeated, thank goodness.) Also the same PG&E that has been installing so-called “Smart Meters” to replace old electric meters. The Smart Meters have been causing complaints all over the state for months (accuracy, causing interference with radio devices, etc.)
Wow. And yep you can see debris flying before the explosion. I’m sure the NTSB has lots of work to do but that sure seems like the blow out was before ignition.
The woman running away with her baby is freaky. As is how it looks like the cars are driving right into the fireball.
And, why are people walking towards the fireball. It must have been farther away than we’re assuming from the camera view. Of course, if you lived there, or had a loved one there, your instinct would be to TRY to go there.
Some of those people may have had a desire to help, and that’s why they were going toward rather than away from the fire. In disasters like that sometimes bystanders with vehicles wind up transporting injured to local hospitals on their own intiative.
I checked out the location on Google maps. The gas station is about 300 yards from the center of the blast (not 1/4 mile as I said earlier). They’re a lot farther away from the fire than it looks in the video. It’s just shooting really high in the air.
This piqued my curiosity…is there any provision anywhere in the US for how things like natural gas lines are laid in seismically sensitive areas? Some type of protection from ground shift and subsequent accidental rupture?
For instance, here’s an article from the San Francisco Chronicle describing how one family was in the process of escaping the fire in their car when a badly burned neighbor walked up to them. They drove him to the hospital. I’ll spoiler-box the following because it’s kind of unpleasant.
[SPOILER]Amanda [the fifteen-year-old daughter of the couple in the article] said she had to open the door for Ruigomez [the badly burned neighbor, whose girlfriend was among the fatalities].