Phil's Blog: 2005-08-14

Explosion near S.F. shopping mall

CROCKER GALLERIA EVACUATED

By Kellie Schmitt and Elise Ackerman

Mercury News

Police evacuated the Crocker Galleria after an explosion rattled the upscale retail center in San Francisco's financial district at 9:54 a.m. prompting fears -- which quickly proved unfounded -- that the city was under terrorist attack.

Instead, Pacific Gas & Electric said the explosion appeared to have been caused by a fault in an underground transformer in front of the Polo Ralph Lauren store on Kearny Street.

Tom DeMartini, 44, of San Francisco was sitting in a truck nearby when the blast occurred. ``I saw the sidewalk lifted and flames jumped up,'' he recalled.

Across the street, Wen Batiz-Vegas saw flames shooting up from a manhole. ``I just heard a boom and shattering glass,'' said the 40-year-old network administrator.

``Police were yelling: `Get off the block!''' said Alvin Kimbell Andrews, 43, who works as a security guard at 153 Kearny Street. ``I thought it was terrorism.''

Hundreds of people milled around the Union Square area as police blocked off the area where the explosion occurred. There was at least one reported injury, a woman who suffered burns.

Chris Llorente told KNTV Channel 11 he felt the explosion and walked outside to see a plume of black smoke, flames and heard a woman screaming. Llorente said he could see the awning of the Ralph Lauren store on fire.

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Summer Reading: Already Dead by Denis Johnson

(p.36) Nights are cold but we drive with the top down for the oxygen. The cypresses on the cliffs high over the sea, dragged sideways by the wind over centuries into permanent blurs, whizzes, smears, seem to be part of a comic strip as we, drunk and dangerous scream past in the heartstopping blue twilight. Offshore, the small lights of fishing-boats float in the dark: if you let them they'll start symbolizing everything. I slow way down to light the reefer I've rolled, sucking in the smoke along with the damp clean ocean air. Melissa shakes her head. I jam the pedal.

(p.40-41) We in California show anger and pleasure the same way, by a little California laugh. You need an ear for the difference. And things aren't "good," and things are never "bad" - no, in this lush eternity by the sea we measure our moments by two other words. everything on the spectrum of undesirability, from minor annoyance to univeral tragedy, is okay. Anything better to any degree, all the way up to a colossal lottery jackpot or the return of Jesus - that's neat.