Huge blast in San Bruno; neighborhood on fire

I had the honour of meeting San Franciscans earlier this year and i've never met more friendlier and positive people who went out of their way to make me feel at home in a City I was a stranger to.

I've donated to the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter, hope my small donation helps someone out!

reply to post by mistafaz


I work at Seton and when I heard they called a code triage on the news, I went over there immediately. I found out they received 3 patients, and everything is under control. The news also reported that these hospitals needed O negative blood, and that wasn't true either. The news reporters were reporting different things.

Was the Massive Explosion in San Bruno a Meteorite Impact Event?
9/10/2010 3:55PM

They say it was a ruptured fuel line that caused a massive explosion destroying a small neighborhood.

What they don't know is what "Caused" the fuel line to explode.

Maybe it was the giant fireball reported just beforehand?

www.youtube.com...

I cannot imagine what it must be like for those with homes left to go back into their neigborhood. It will never be the same. May those that lost loved ones, their homes and those facing going back find Peace.

reply to post by keithm

Originally posted by keithm
Was the Massive Explosion in San Bruno a Meteorite Impact Event?

You may be interested in a thread with a very similar title where a discussion about that is currently taking place.

Was San Bruno "natural gas explosion" a meteorite?

Did a plane crash into a natural gas line? Did a meteor impact hit a natural gas line? Was it sabotage? Did some poor man go outside to take a smoke and it was the last thing he ever did? The media has played down if not out right hide the mess in Mexico and Columbia has made people a little jumpy. Now every explosion is going to have meteor impact questions about it. A car bomb goes off in Iraqi and some are going to think meteor impact after this mess. Most likely it was just as they said it was but now people are going to always have a doubt

Five are missing; cadaver dogs get nine hits.

(09-11) 16:37 PDT San Bruno -- At least five people are missing after the fiery natural gas explosion Thursday that killed four people and left a San Bruno neighborhood in flames.

Mayor Jim Ruane told reporters at a news conference this morning that police have now determined that two residents of the Crestmoor neighborhood remain unaccounted for. Police officials added three more to that number this afternoon.

Meanwhile, there were mixed reports on how people have been killed. The Associated Press reported that two more bodies had been found for a total of six deaths. But San Mateo County Coroner's officials insisted that only four deaths have been confirmed.

Since the fire has been extinguished, firefighters can now try and find any remains of missing residents. I fear that the ones they do find will be only dental records and DNA.

The damage done makes the area look very post-apocalyptic.

reply to post by lostinspace


Thanks for your reply but i`ve realized they`re related to it (the pipe line vs transportation) but whyÉ

My take on it all.

What clinched it for me was the reports of gas fumes noticed by many of the residents up to 3 weeks ago. PG&E was called out and nothing was done. These people smelled fumes strongest at the street and sewer drains. That natural gas seeped into the ground all that time, got into the sewer drains evidently and after a period of time something set it off. They may never know what sparked it.

The rumbling and roar people heard was the gas coming out just before it ignited. What puzzled me tho was that one witness said his radio cut off just before the explosion. He did not say whether it was a battery radio or plugged into the outlet, of course. But is that strange that his radio would cut off just before the explosion?

PG&E will pay, they are doing a lot already. But I say, be vigilant folks! Who knows what conditions are in the pipelines under your street. Smell gas? REPORT it, report it as many times as you have to to get the problem fixed.

If you have some extra dollars, donate to the Red Cross, these people need it.

Thank you.

reply to post by berkeleygal


Well if the radio was AC powered the blast may have taken out the underground power lines. In fact it may have been the power lines that set off the blast.

7 confirmed dead, 6 missing in San Bruno

(09-11) 23:18 PDT -- At least seven are dead and six missing following a massive explosion in San Bruno Thursday evening, according to police.

Specially trained dogs this evening found three victims, bringing the total to seven fatalities of the explosion, which happened at about 6:15 p.m. Thursday evening near Skyline Boulevard and San Bruno Avenue.

"Our hearts go out to the victims of this tragedy," San Bruno police Chief Neil Telford said in a statement.

More sad news coming to light about the number of victims..

Originally posted by berkeleygal
My take on it all.

What clinched it for me was the reports of gas fumes noticed by many of the residents up to 3 weeks ago. PG&E was called out and nothing was done.

PG&E will pay, they are doing a lot already. But I say, be vigilant folks! Who knows what conditions are in the pipelines under your street. Smell gas? REPORT it, report it as many times as you have to.

Don't just report it to the gas company but call the fire department.
all fire departments have gas detecting equipment and if the fire department finds a dangerous condition the gas company will have to something and not ignore it.

Yes sometimes its just a low pressure leak and is not as dangerous but in this case the fire department would have known about the high pressure line and the gas company service people that do servicing homes may not have known about the line.

In this case i suspect the gas company people that checked the area thought it was a leak in a low pressure line but were unable to find it.
If these gas company service people had known there was a high pressure line in the area they would have known of the danger. but high pressure interstate line are under a totally different part of the gas company that has in many cases little if any communications with the low pressure guys and have there own company offices so they never deal with the the other part of the company.

Its the same thing with the power company or the phone companies. They have there own specialty crews.

Originally posted by berkeleygal
My take on it all.

What clinched it for me was the reports of gas fumes noticed by many of the residents up to 3 weeks ago. PG&E was called out and nothing was done.

PG&E will pay, they are doing a lot already. But I say, be vigilant folks! Who knows what conditions are in the pipelines under your street. Smell gas? REPORT it, report it as many times as you have to.

Don't just report it to the gas company but call the fire department.
all fire departments have gas detecting equipment and if the fire department finds a dangerous condition the gas company will have to something and not ignore it.

Yes sometimes its just a low pressure leak and is not as dangerous but in this case the fire department would have known about the high pressure line and the gas company service people that do servicing homes may not have known about the line.

In this case i suspect the gas company people that checked the area thought it was a leak in a low pressure line but were unable to find it.
If these gas company service people had known there was a high pressure line in the area they would have known of the danger. but high pressure interstate line are under a totally different part of the gas company that has in many cases little if any communications with the low pressure guys and have there own company offices so they never deal with the the other part of the company.

Its the same thing with the power company or the phone companies. They have there own specialty crews.

reply to post by mistafaz


i think it is time for america to start spending more money on infrastructure of america, rather than infrastructure in other countries.

I wanted to share a finding from GoldenFleece from this thread.

It appears that not all transmission lines have odorant added to them.

Existing state and federal regulations determine whether or not a gathering or transmission pipeline should include odorant In some cases, depending on the intended use of the gas, it is not possible to add odorant to a pipeline.

Link

Multiple sources confirm this. This potentially brings up some more questions regarding a number of things.

reply to post by Three_moons


Fireballs have been increasing a lot lately these past few years since 2009. I bet it was that fireball that crashed into that gas pipeline.

We have been discussing it in the 2012 forum.

Not in this location and years back,
a corner house I drove by had intense gas odor as I passed down the street.
Quite a time later an explosion news hit the papers.
I see a new house there now.
The source of these big leaks are never found ahead of time.
So the papers report the people called in many times and nothing
was found leaking.
How can that be, there was definitely a leak and should be found.

For heavens sake people, the fireball WAS the GAS igniting!

2nd line denying ignorance

Originally posted by dragnet53
reply to post by Three_moons

 

Fireballs have been increasing a lot lately these past few years since 2009. I bet it was that fireball that crashed into that gas pipeline.

We have been discussing it in the 2012 forum.

Interesting update:

In one potentially significant area for investigators, records surfaced Saturday showing that two years ago, the San Bruno City Council hired a construction company to replace underground sewer lines in the same area as the the pipeline that exploded.

Work to replace 1,670 feet of aging sewer pipes crossed the gas pipeline at the intersection where the explosion occurred.

To avoid the disruption of digging trenches in the street, the contractor used a method called "pipe bursting."

Crews pulled a large cone-shaped device through the aging 6-inch sewer pipes, shattering them and replacing them by pulling a new 10-inch polyethylene sewer pipe in behind them. The technique can cause ground shaking and disruption of adjacent soil and rock.

PG&E spokeswoman Geisha Williams, asked by a resident Saturday at the town hall meeting about whether the sewer work could have damaged the natural gas line, said PG&E inspected the gas line before and after the sewer work and found no problems.

But a representative of the California Public Utilities Commission told the Mercury News that large transmission pipes, which move gas at high pressures, can be at risk of failure if they are damaged, even in relatively small ways.

www.twincities.com...