CA - San Bruno explosion, several blocks on fire

[SuziQ]

National pipeline mapping system
https://www.npms.phmsa.dot.gov/searchp/newlogin.asp?search=Pub

 

[anneinchicago]

Jacklyn & Janessa Greig have been identified as among the dead

Elizabeth Torres, lIz, 81, is also presumed dead, her granddaughter fears.

You don't need an account, just go to the main Twitter page, use sanbrunofire in the search box and find out where to donate, what is needed, offers of housing etc.


Pet update:

Pets need donations as well. Bring pet food to the Pennisula SPCA

http://sfappeal.com/news/2010/09/sa...etyspca-dog-and-cat-food-donations-needed.php

The main office in San Mateo will stay open 24 hours to accept lost pets. Pet owners looking for their animals can visit the main office until 7 p.m. today, Delucchi said.
PHS/SPCA workers have been on the streets all day searching for lost pets and they will also visit homes to check for animals, Delucchi said.

They are also taking in injured wildlife.

 

[anneinchicago]

Oh, heck. One morepost.
How to help

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com...er_ways_to_aid_victims_of_san_bruno_fire.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/10/BA6K1FBTE0.DTL

 

[Elphaba]

Does anyone know how many people are unaccounted for, thus far?

 

[Elphaba]

National pipeline mapping system
https://www.npms.phmsa.dot.gov/searchp/newlogin.asp?search=Pub

Thank you... I think everyone should take a look at how close their homes are to gas lines.

 

[LinasK]

John Wildermuth, Kevin Fagan, Marisa Lagos,Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writers
San Francisco Chronicle September 10, 2010 08:34 PM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

(09-10) 20:34 PDT SAN BRUNO -- A full day after the natural gas explosion and inferno that turned a San Bruno neighborhood into ash, the wreckage was still too hot for people to be let back in - but families of some of four people killed in the blaze got the news they had dreaded.
Investigators with search-and-rescue dogs spent Friday picking through the debris for more fatalities, with no new finds. The list of government agencies investigating the blast grew as a National Transportation Safety Board team arrived to take over the probe.
Representatives of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said they did not know what caused a 30-inch, high-pressure gas pipeline to rupture at about 6:15 p.m. Thursday, setting off a firestorm that destroyed 37 homes in the Crestmoor neighborhood west of Interstate 280 and badly damaged eight others. Scores of people were treated at hospitals, and at least three were in critical condition Friday.

Officials said they had no estimate yet on the financial cost of the disaster. But the personal cost was immense.
The San Mateo County coroner identified two of the dead as Jacqueline Greig, 44, and he 13-year-old daughter, Janessa, whose house at 1670 Claremont Drive was destroyed.

Also killed was 20-year-old Jessica Morales, the coroner said.
The coroner has not identified the fourth victim. But relatives of 81-year-old Elizabeth Torres, whose house at 1660 Claremont Drive was leveled, fear it may be her. A body was found outside her home, and the coroner was checking dental records, relatives said.

According to her family, Torres - who uses a wheelchair - had been smelling gas lately, and she was at home Thursday awaiting PG&E crews to arrive and check her gas stove, which wasn't working.

At least 52 people suffered burns, smoke inhalation and other injuries, and three of them were in critical condition with third-degree burns, authorities said.

More than 100 people were evacuated from the area soon after the explosion, most of whom were still being kept away at midday. After the evacuations, police confronted a suspected looter who assaulted an officer and ran off, but was chased down and arrested, said San Bruno Police Chief Neil Telford.
Some 200 firefighters from agencies around the area responded to the blaze, joined by air tankers that dropped retardant on the fire. Millbrae Fire Chief Dennis Haag, the incident commander, said Friday, "As devastating as this was, it could have been so much worse."
He said the first engine on scene got within about a 100 yards of the fire and "then had to stop because their windshield cracked (from the heat). As they pulled back, they saw paint bubbling on the cars in the street."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/10/BAVQ1FBPMD.DTL#ixzz0zFkzPZHd​

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[LinasK]

Does anyone know how many people are unaccounted for, thus far?

Will Kane, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle September 11, 2010 12:09 PM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

(09-11) 12:09 PDT San Bruno -- At least two people remain 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. Search and rescue teams, joined by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, continue to work their way through the charred debris, looking for other victims and clues to the cause of the pipeline blast that sent a fireball of blazing gas roaring through the hillside neighborhood.
Thirty-seven homes in the quiet residential neighborhood were destroyed and eight more damaged, local fire officials reported. At least three residents remain in critical condition with second- and third-degree burns.
The San Mateo County coroner has identified three of dead as Jacqueline Greig, 41, and her daughter, Janessa Greig, 13, and Jessica Morales, 20, all of San Bruno. The coroner was still trying to confirm the identity of the fourth person who died in the fire.
Despite numerous reports that people in the neighborhood had reported the smell of gas in the days before Thursday's explosion, officials from PG&E, which operates the 30-inch, high-pressure pipe, said that so far they have discovered no evidence that they received any calls.
A look into company records has found "no confirmed calls by residents in the vicinity within nine days" of the explosion, PG&E President Chris Johns said at the news conference. The utility also has no record of any construction work being done in the area by PG&E crews in the days before the blast.
PG&E is only two-thirds of the way through its review of phone records, Johns cautioned.
Sen. Barbara Boxer visited the burned-out neighborhood this morning and was shocked by the extent of the devastation.
"It is really hard to put into words the way you feel when you see the remnants of a beautiful neighborhood that's just disappeared," she said.
The senator promised to seek federal aid to the disaster area and said she would do what was needed to determine the cause of the blast. She has asked PG&E to inspect all their lines in the area, something utility officials say is already being done.
The age and condition of the pipe, which was laid in 1956, will be a major focus of the investigation into the disaster.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/11/MNB91FCDGK.DTL#ixzz0zGMsanXc​

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[LinasK]

Posted: 8:34 am PDT September 11, 2010Updated: 11:10 am PDT September 11, 2010
SAN BRUNO, Calif. -- College student Joe Ruigomez’s life changed forever in a matter of minutes. At moment he was enjoying an evening at home with his girlfriend. The next -- his body ravaged by fire -- he escaped his burning San Bruno home knowing his trapped girlfriend was doomed by the flames.According to a friend who did not want to be named, Ruigomez and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Jessica Morales, were at Ruigomez's home to watch the first football game of the NFL season after his classes Thursday. On Ruigomez's Facebook page, he wrote in a post dated 4:35 p.m. Thursday, "Finally the NFL season has arrived, gonna be a good year." But at about 6:15 p.m., the explosion rocked the Crestmoor Canyon neighborhood near the home, creating a fireball about 80 feet high. Ruigomez's home caught fire, apparently trapping Morales inside, according to the friend, a 19-year-old San Bruno resident. Ruigomez stayed inside, desperately trying to save Morales, but eventually was forced to leave the home to save his own life, the friend said. He was eventually taken to Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, where he is in critical condition with severe burns, the friend said. Ruigomez is one of four victims of the fire who are in critical condition at the hospital.http://www.ktvu.com/news/24969036/detail.html

 

[Elphaba]

Thank you Linas, so much, for the updates.

 

[LinasK]

Thank you Linas, so much, for the updates.

No Problem! It's local news for me...
This is the one way I can help, they want monetary donations, and O- blood, rather than items. I can't do either of those things...

 

[LinasK]

SAN BRUNO, Calif. — Authorities say search teams have found the remains of two more people who were killed in the suburban San Francisco blast that destroyed nearly 40 homes.
The discovery Saturday raises the death toll to six. San Bruno city spokesman Steve Firpo says the remains were found Saturday morning. He had no other details. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39120986/ns/us_news-life/

 

[LinasK]

By Paul Rogers, Mike Rosenberg and Neil Gonzales Bay Area News Group
Posted: 09/11/2010 11:44:04 AM PDT
Two days after a massive pipeline blast engulfed a Peninsula neighborhood in a hellish inferno, search teams made the grisly discovery of three more bodies in a home destroyed by the explosion, and new information surfaced about a 2008 sewer project that could have weakened the gas line.
In all, the death toll rose to seven, and six additional people are still considered missing, officials said Saturday night.
<snip>
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 location of the pipeline that exploded.
In May 2008, the city approved a contract with D'Arcy and Harty Construction, a San Francisco firm, to replace 1,670 feet of aging sewer pipes on Earl Avenue from Sneath Lane to Glenview Drive. The sewer work crossed the gas pipeline at the intersection of Earl and Glenview, which is the location of the explosion.
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 replaced 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 nearby, said that 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, which regulates PG&E pipelines, 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.
more at link:http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_16051113?source=most_viewed

 

[SuziQ]

Omg, the previous work sounds crazy. I was hopeful at only 4 souls lost. Prayer to the victims and family's.

 

[porkchop]

I read that that pipeline was put in in 1938. If this isn't proof that wee need to slow down some of that money we send overseas and invest it in upgrading our infrastructure I don't know what is.

 

[StellaLuna]

I lived one block from the center of this tragedy for my first twenty-one years. In fact, Claremont and Glenview was my elementary school bus stop. I knew most of the families, and always felt so safe. It was a wonderful place to grow up and even though I haven't lived there in over twenty-five years, I feel a closeness to all those people in the Crestmoor area. My thoughts and prayers are with them all.

 

[LinasK]

Posted: 7:13 am PDT September 17, 2010Updated: 9:00 am PDT September 17, 2010
SAN BRUNO, Calif. -- While the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office continued with the identification process, relatives have released a statement confirming that three generations of the Bullis family were victims of last week’s natural gas fireball.In a statement released Thursday night – one week after the fatal blast – the family said the remains of three individuals had been found in the wreckage of a home at 1690 Claremont.“It is the wish of the Bullis family as a whole to release this statement to the community and our friends and family. At the residence of 1690 Claremont the remains of two male victims and one female victim were discovered,” the statement read. “Though still awaiting final pending DNA results from the Coroner’s office, it is with heavy hearts that the Bullis family announces the passing of Lavonne, Greg, and William Bullis.”“However, until final DNA results are released our family members will be listed among the missing. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all other families who have lost a loved one through this tragedy. It is with hope and love that we wish to see this community rebuilt.”
The family home was located adjacent to ground zero of the blast and was completely destroyed in the explosion and fireball.Grandmother Lavonne Bullis was 82, her son Greg, 50, and grandson Willie, 17.Once confirmed, the death toll from the catastrophe would stand at seven with as many as seven people still hospitalized with critical burns. Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners were expected Friday at memorial service for a mother and daughter who were also killed.http://www.ktvu.com/news/25049976/detail.html

 

[LinasK]

Chronicle Staff Report
San Francisco Chronicle September 22, 2010 04:25 PM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

(09-22) 16:25 PDT SAN BRUNO -- The death toll from the San Bruno natural gas pipeline explosion and fire officially rose to seven Wednesday, with confirmation that three members of a family were killed in the Sept. 9 disaster.
Gregory Bullis, 50, a nurse; his mother, Lavonne Bullis, 82; and his son, William Bullis, 17, died at the family's home at 1690 Claremont Drive when the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. pipeline ruptured and exploded into a fireball, the San Mateo County coroner's office said.
William Bullis was the only victim who was identified without the aid of DNA testing conducted by a state Department of Justice laboratory in Richmond, the coroner said.
Gregory Bullis' wife, Sue, also a nurse, was working in Sunnyvale at the time of the blast. Also away was the couple's daughter, Janine Bullis, 24. The family issued a statement last week saying they believed the three had been killed.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/23/BAGN1FHUIC.DTL#ixzz10NwtHMJT​

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