Results tagged “explosion”

Oh yikes, folks. According to our increasingly favorite Twitter account to follow, Emergency_In_SF, they've got word (via timmysanfran) that there's a fire, possibly caused by an explosion, at Market (near Fourth Street) next to the massive Ross store.

Last night around 2AM near downtown Oakland, an empty U.S. Postal Service truck slammed into another truck that had pulled over along I-880 in order to assist a woman who was having car trouble. The postal truck jack-knifed as it collided with the other truck, ruptured its own fuel tank, and exploded in a massive inferno which left one of the driver's injured and a dog in the woman's car dead. As KTVU reports, this caused a massive early-morning backup and two lanes on 880 remained closed into the commuting hours. Luckily, unlike the last enormous big rig inferno in that part of the world, this one does not appear to have melted an entire roadway.

Instead of busting another myth, Mythbusters accidentally busted residents' windows in Yolo Country yesterday. The locally-produced Discovery Channel show, it seems, was attempting to literally "knock the socks off" a mannequin via the ignition of 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate. (!?) But the boom was just too big. According to KCRA 3, "the explosion was so big it shook the town of Esparto, knocking [Sherril] Stephens off her couch and breaking her front window." Resident Paul Williams said, "It felt like a house blew up, straight up." The reason the public and school were not notified of the explosion beforehand, as Esparto Fire Department Chief Barry Burns explains it, is because 'Mythbusters is supposed to be a really popular show. Everybody would have been out there. We would have had to cancel it because it would have been too dangerous." Aside from Stephen's sore bottom, no one was was injured due to the explosion. And no word yet whether said socks were literally knocked off.

Police are viewing the blast that shook San Francisco's Sunnyside neighborhood Monday night as an accident. Although illegal fireworks were found in the house's garage and rumors swirled about possible mischief, police still aren't sure what caused the explosion. The arson team at the scene ruled out any criminal activity. The blast - which blew off all but the top two steps on the staircase leading up to the second floor, as well as much of the lower front of the building - sent two residents to the hospital. Both are listed in critical condition.

The police have ruled out electrical and natural gas as causes of last night's 108 Congo explosion. The front of the house was blown out (including the garage, where the explosion originated) and five people were injured, including two men inside the house and a 2-year-old who lives next door--his window was shattered and glass hit him in the face.

        

Sunnyside, famous for its collapsing houses, falling trees, naughty neighbors, and proximity to Daly City, was the site of an explosion that rocked the hood at around 7:45 Monday night. The explosion happened in the garage of 108 Congo, which four young brothers who "fix cars" (according to a neighbor) called home. Several other people share the rest of the house. While there are some residents still in the hospital, no life-threatening injuries have been reported. If you're in the area, go say hi to SFist favorite, Claudine Wong. (She's wearing leather today.)

Oh my, word. Did you hear it? We received a few emails mentioning it, but NBC 11 confirms:

Offices in Capitol Hill received a manila envelope with a letter claiming responsibility for today's bombing of a landmark military recruiting station in Times Square, NYC. Our parent site, Gothamist, tells us that "WNBC reports that the letters, which arrived today, included a photo of the Army recruiting center 'before it was bombed and...the words 'We did it.'" Which group is claiming responsibility, exactly, remains to be known.

Earlier this morning, Forensics Analytical Lab in Hayward called the fire department for help because they'd spilled a bunch of picric acid.

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities.

Transformers.... more than meets the eye! Not only robots in disguise, but also the source of today's MUNI irritation. Curse you, Decepticons!

As discussed in the SFist Contributes tips page, what people heard in Ingleside Heights early yesterday morning was a mysterious car explosion. Witnesses saw a man park a car, get out of the car and into someone else's, and then the parked car burst into flames. Around 7:00 a.m, another car mysteriously exploded, this time in the Tenderloin at Ellis and Taylor. The two incidents aren't thought to be related -- but how weird.

Friend of SFist Charlie Anders reminds us that her nifty and unusual spoken-word group, Writers With Drinks, will be experiencing yet another stupendous explosion of literary greatness this Saturday, the 9th, from 7:30 to 9:30 at The Make Out Room. Presenters include:

There was an early-morning explosion just before 7 a.m. in an apartment building on Mission Street near Geneva, in the Ingleside Excelsior neighborhood. The explosion blew out the windows of the dry-cleaning business located on the bottom floor, spraying glass all over Mission Street. The authorities are still investigating but note that they've been called to that address for drug-related activities before.

Update: All Bay Area public transportation will be free tomorrow -- but does that means public transportation, including MUNI and Caltrain and SamTrans? We think so, anyways.

Here's todays sports news

Last Saturday, a fight broke out at the "Hyphy High School Bash" at the Marin County Corte Madera Recreation Center. The police raced to the scene upon hearing reports of gunshots and a Golden Gate Transit bus being blocked on Tamalpais Drive by 80 teenagers. They couldn't confirm whether shots had been fired, but someone had sprayed pepper spray into the crowd and around the same time, someone broke into a nearby elementary school. Hilariously, the Marin Independent Journal describes hyphy as "a music and dance expression that grew out of the Bay Area hip-hop scene," and one Corte Madera parent says "It's really ironic. We live in Marin, and I feel safer sending my daughter to San Francisco." Ooooh, not dangerous San Francisco! Hyphy hyphy hyphy hyphy (or, as they call it in Marin, "a music and dance expression").

When we first heard about the show, "One Man Star Wars", we weren't sure whether it was the dumbest idea ever or the awesomest idea ever. After seeing it, we can say with great confidence that it's the awesomest idea ever.

over on the Chronicle's Culture Blog. RIP, us!

That power outage at SFO yesterday was from a switch failure, not PG&E. PG&E, though, still has to take the blame for that explosion in Chinatown yesterday too.

-There was a power outage at SFO last night for about an hour. -And there was an explosion somewhere underground in Chinatown that led to evacuations. Nobody was hurt but the area reeked of gas.

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost.

--Children meet cows.

Security is a "top priority" for tomorrow's Mausoleum Party, hosted by the Stanford frats. You gotta love an article that starts with the splash headline "Police: Stanford not the place to go for free beer on weekends." As one officer tells the Stanford Daily, "I’ve had experiences where a high-school student from Palo Alto has gotten a hold of a Stanford ID card, made copies of it and put it over their own ID. Then, before you know it, we have 42 kids presenting cards that say they are Susie Smith.” Go Susie, go!

October is SF Open Studios month, where art enthusiasts and wine and cheese chasers can traipse around the city and visit the studios of San Francisco artists and sign up on their mailing lists or buy their work. Tonight there are preview receptions featuring numerous artists at Belcher Studios and Gallery (69 Belcher, near Market, Church, 14th St.) and at Art Explosion Studios in two locations - 744 Alabama St. (between 19th & 20th) and 2425 17th St. (@ Potrero). (6-9pm)

When last we saw the "Lost" gang, the Others had captured Sawyer, Jack, Kate, and Hurley--although Hurley was free to go; Michael was given WALT! and told to leave the island; Locke had lost all faith in the hatch, while Ecko became a true believer; Desmond realized his lack of button pushing had caused the crash of Oceanic Flight 815; Sayid, Sun, and Jin were pondering the remains of a gigantic statue, of which only a huge four-toed foot was left; and Charlie remained an annoying putz who seemed to walk away from the hatch explosion with nary a scratch on him. Dammit.

-Disaster strikes as a blackout affects the new Westfield shopping center. Luckily, Bloomies wasn't affected, but other stores were. The horror, the horror.

about the Westfield San Francisco Shopping Centre's reopening of the old Emporium space on Market and Powell this Thursday (the 28th). Cross your fingers along with us that the opening ceremonies will include Gavin cutting a red ribbon with a big ol' pair of scissors!

There's nothing like a good post-apocalyptic story. Charlton Heston wandering around a deserted downtown while zombies lurk around the corner? Or Charlton Heston battling damned dirty apes? Or Charlton Heston eating people? Awesome. Recently, our desire for a good P-A book got so intense we contemplated reading The Stand again, for the third time. (Instead we opted for The Stand rip-off Swan Song and, well, we're still contemplating reading The Stand for a third time.) So, needless to say, it was with much anticipation that we sat down to watch CBS's post-apocalyptic drama, "Jericho." (It airs tonight at 8 p.m., with a rerun on Saturday.)

Chargers 27 Raiders 0- Well, that didn't go well. It went so well, in fact, Aaron Brooks got himself already benched and we had him making it halfway through the season before getting benched. Typical Raiders-- all the hype, all the energy, all the excitement that was created before this game (the tailgaiting started early Monday morning) and they totally laid an egg. In sort-of Prime Time. Even more revealing, everybody in the world knew the Chargers were going to run the ball and everybody knows they weren't going to let Phillip Rivers throw the ball and yet the Raiders gave up 131 yards to Tomlinson. The countdown to the Randy Moss explosion begins now.