jet engine that sound when the natural gas was hissing? did you see the fireball? did you feel the intensity of the heat? describe to us your experience. >> caller: sure. i actually did not hear the sound. the reason that i even noticed, i was at the window entertaining my baby daughter and we saw the cop cars flying up geary on the opposite side of the road, against traffic, so i looked around and there was a ball of flames at parker and euri so that's when i noticed. i didn't hear the explosion. >> about how far away are you, naomi, from the sight of the flames there? >> i'm actually two blocks away at geary and steinion and i overlook euri. i can see the flames and the fire trucks and equipment from my window. >> this is actually qui incredible, this is your video we're looking at. i assume you are parked and shot

this. could you tell us what went through your mind, especially if you're with your daughter? >> yes, honestly, i've never seen anything like this before. you know, you always have very different fires in the city. i've been here a long time so i've seen a number and never seen flames this high and this intense, and even now, it's still ongoing, and there doesn't seem to be any abatement from it and there's trucks and construction crews digging up the road, so it's pretty incredible. i wasn't particularly scared, we're far enough away that it wasn't impactful to our building, but certainly just all the cops and fire engines responding was pretty incredible. >> i am just curious, with the size of those flames, could you feel the flames a couple blocks away or were you not that close? >> caller: no, i definitely couldn't feel that and being inside, through the windows i didn't feel that but you can see the fumes and the flames, but

the smoke here, but you can't feel the heat. >> naomi, how long have you been in san francisco? >> caller: so i've been in san francisco 18 years, and living in this neighborhood for ten years, so this is home for us, and i walk up and down this street every day and familiar with hong kong lounge. it's a busy and popular restaurant with lines around the block on the weekend. there's a preschool about half a block away. my first thought was first of all, was there anyone in the restaurant and did they get out okay. it certainly didn't seem like something you could escape from easily if you were inside. >> we want to let you know the good news s according to the fire department, the patrons in the restaurant did all get out, which is fantastic, because it was the lunch hour, and it was probably packed. naomi, this is incredible footage that you shot and we want to thank you for sharing that with us, and also sharing with us your experience. >> and i'm just curious, naomi, just so i understand your state

of mind. are you feeling comfortable enough at this point in time that you are going to be safe where you are, a couple of blocks away? >> caller: yes, definitely. i'm two blocks away and at this point in time, i feel perfectly safe in our building. >> okay, great. well, weer time. we appreciate you taking that video for us and sending it to us and the best of luck and please, stay safe. >> caller: thank you. you're welcome. >> you know, we talk about what's happened in the city historically, and dan, i think about the loma prieta earthquake and the marina district burning, the fires, it was the natural gas, feeding the fires, and destroyed so many homes, and it is a reminder that we need to evaluate whether our smdystems, our pipelines are set up in such a way that we are going to be safe when that catastrophic event happens. are we ready? >> exactly right, and the way that we respond, i mean, clearly

an earthquake spawns fires often as a result of gas manz beiins broken. we have to understand the technology and what's being done to put them out in a quick fashion and this clearly is raising more questions. are we going on over an hour at this point we believe? >> about two. >> almost two hours now. >> can they shut off the gas quickly and what about in our own homes? many of us don't actually know where to do that in our own homes. >> right. >> and this is a good reminder. >> it's so important to have that wrench outside, have it by your valve, know where the valve is, just understand how to do this and how to get it done. >> right now, we want to go back out to abc 7's vic lee out at the scene. vic, you've talked to more people. i know you've got some new information for us. >> reporter: well, we are uphill from parker and geary, and as you can see, flames still shooting up into the air, some 30, 40 feet. w bigger.e the wind firefighters spraying water not

to put down the flames because that is a gas fire. pg&e has to turn off the gas source but they're spraying the water onto the other buildings to keep the flames from spreading and of course to cool the atmosphere in that street over there, where the flames are shooting up. we were told by san francisco fire that at the time of the explosion, when that gas line was somehow compromised by those private contractors working on fiber optics that there were apparently eight or ten people, eight or ten workers around that area working, but they were all safely evacuated. again, they were mostly private contractors, working on the fiber optics. we're also told that, and as you mentioned here, i was listening in to your conversation just a little earlier that the hong

kong lounge appears to have been badly damaged, perhaps destroyed. that is the building to the left of the screen, and you can see the blackened out portion of that building, which is closest to the flames. several businesses also damaged as well as those residential units on the top. i spoke to a pg&e worker moments ago and he told me basically what they're trying to do to cut that gas line, they've got several options, actually, but what they're doing now is, and you might see some of the workers again left of screen digging a hole. they are actually trenching. they are trenching to squeeze off that gas from the gas line. they're also looking and perhaps at this time actually turning valves off in the surrounding area to try to squeeze the gas off that way.

there is no timetable for when that gas will be shut down. there are dozens of firefighters just waiting to go into action, the moment that is done. so that is the very latest from uphill parker and geary. as you know, geary is a main thoroughfare in the richmond district, and this is actually jordan hill. we have an update here. let's carry it. can you give us an update? hold on. >> this is what we're going to do because i want to give you guys access. i need one camera, going to be a pool camera. >> reporter: they're actually talking about moving us, getting a pool camera to go into, closer to the fire zone, so that's the very latest. i think they're going to move us, but you can still see the fire is still going on strong. pg&e trying to turn the gas off. back to you in the studio. >> vic, thanks very much. let's go to abc 7's kate larson

on the phone. kate, what do you have? >> reporter: hey there. well, i'm in the neighborhood on a block that's actually under shelter in place orders. i came to my friend's house who lives here, and they told me that they heard the sirens, that they heard the helicopters overhead and noticed that their power went off this afternoon, so they went outside and shortly thereafter, the police very quickly asked them to go inside and stay inside. my friends say do we need to evacuate in they were obviously concerned about what was happening, just two blocks away and they said no, no evacuations yet. but i can tell you everyone is very much on edge in this neighborhood. i have spoken to some firefighters two minutes ago who were huffing and puffing, completely out of breath, trying to get new oxygen tanks to their fellow firefighters who were here in the field, obviously trying to make sure that everyone stays safe. the police are on edge, tooage, drivers don't go down shelter in

place because we're a block and a half away from all of this happened. there are still people wandering around in the neighborhood looking around like what is happening, because this is obviously very unexpected on a wednesday afternoon in this relatively quiet part of san francisco. >> kate, you're just a block or a block and a half away. what do you see, feel and hear in terms of these flames? can you feel it just a block or a block and a half away? >> reporter: what i hear is a lot of helicopters right now, sort of a rush of water and increasing amount of water that's coming off of the fire hoses and just coming in to the neighborhood, so clearly the san francisco fire department is dumping a ton of water on this, because we're two blocks away and it's a small, little river collecting on the side of the road and just a few minutes ago, i did smell smoke sort of similar to a house fire. i haven't smelled a ton of it, haven't seen a ton of smoke, but i have smelled a little and you hear all the helicopters and the first responders in the area and

a lot of water and concerned folks around here, understandably. >> of course. that's kate larson on the scene. thanks for your time, kate. kristen, you can clearly see that there is more smoke/steam coming off the location. the winds shifted and the big concern is whether the flames would get into another series of building or another building and cause for damage. >> yep, they're hoping to limit it to just the four right now that have been affected, but as we were talking about all that water that's being put on that area, another issue and this of course, much later on, but when we have overnight temperatures, lows below freezing, you are going to create more problems, some of which include possible black ice on the roadways, which i know san francisco sans don't think about that as well. >> you think about firefighters on top of the building, they are

in a precarious position, putting their lives on the line to protect san franciscans, battling their best to keep the fire in the building above the hong kong lounge, to keep it contained to that area, but as these flames continue, now it's been so long, the question is when will pg&e finally get that out. they have dug trenches trying to squeeze off that line. apparently there's no valve in the area that would get the job done. they're going to go through the process of digging around the pipe, and squeezing it off. >> yes. >> we're expecting a news conference in a moment, and hopefully we'll get new answers about why that process is taking so long, and what other things they could do to resolve the situation. >> you mentioned the remote shutoff that had been recommended by the cpuc. it would be interesting to hear what are their thoughts on that and their progress on that may change as a result of what's happening here, but you can see the trenching that we have bn referring . its labor intensive. twoints.th have to squ i

right whe burn where the gas is right now. >> right. >> this could go on for some time. pg&e does not want to give an eta but dan, we are going to an area of so many areas, starting to feel like the san bruno pipeline explosion of 2010 when that gas was going for four or five hours unabated. >> it was going on and on and on, and they couldn't find the valve and when the workers finally found the valve it was jammed up and they couldn't get it closed. >> there was a water situation there, too. >> right. >> remember that? >> absolutely, that's right. >> fortunately, we're not encountering that here and it looks like they're putting quite a ton of water on those buildings to protect those buildings. they're not putting it on the fire directly because that is fed by gas but as you mentioned, a news conference will be starting shortly where we expect new information, hopefully, with

regard to their plan for shutting this from the first firefighters on the scene. >> wow, you heard that, what you were talking about, dan, right, we're not going to put water on the flames. it's a gas main. there's gas coming out so we'll put it on the buildings. that's what they've been doing the past few hours, much peril to the firefighters on the roof that's weakening by the moment. >> exactly. people think put some foam on there and you don't want to put out the flames because you have the gas gathering and potential more explosions and more fire. >> right now we want to turn to kelly with the university of san francisco usf which as we've been reporting is in that area. kelly, thanks for joining us. can you tell us how far away are

you from where this is happening and how that's impacted your campus and students? >> sure. thanks for having me on. we are one block away. we are one block south of where the fire is, so usf is split across a couple of blocks and the closest location is below mountain campus, which is on turk and parker, so about one block outside of the fire. >> so what does this mean for you guys? i mean clearly, there's got to be challenges for students to get to and from, but have you evacuated your buildings? have you canceled classes for the rest of the day? what's happening? >> we are business as usual right now. our public safety has been in contact with the city and county authorities and we are not under evacuation orders. no usf buildings are evacuated. we remain in contact with the authorities and if that changes we'll alert our students and usf community through our email and text alert system as well as messages on our website. no reports of injuries and no

buildings have been evacuated. >> are you telling students for faculty to not come to the campus if they're not already there? firefighters are urging people to stay away from that area in general. >> we are telling students to stay away from the immediate area of the fire, but we do have students here that live on campus, but live nearby that have been alerted to stay away from the area, but they are still and camp success still open so they're still able to come through different routes but to stay away from the immediate area, absolutely. >> okay. >> it's clearly an ongoing situation. i would assume you are watching it closely, kelly, to make sure that nothing changes and perhaps that there is no further danger to the campus. >> ke us constant contact, getting updates with the police department and fire, city and county, if anything changes at all, if there's any threat, we would immediately alert the campus community, all of our

students through text emergency alerts and cell calls and our website as well and get all of that information out immediately if the situation changes at all. >> kelly sampson with usf, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> here we go to the news conference that is san francisco fire chief joann hayes white. >> this is our 3:15 media update for the incident at parker and geary street. chief white. >> good afternoon, everyone. the story is about the same as it was an hour ago. fire department crews have declared a third alarm, on scene containing this fire. there was a gas main that was breached at about 1:18 when we were called to the scene. we're working closely with pga, on scene and actively trying to mitigate this incident. at this point the change from an hour ago is that we had the fire building and three buildings involved. now we have an additional building acros the seet from g

some damage. the good news is that there are no injuries associated with this incident. i'm standing next to paul doherty, spokesperson for pg&e. this is the early stages. p they have on scene working shoulder to shoulder trying to mitigate this incident. we believe there was a private contractor doing fiber optic work in the street when a gas line was hit. >> thank you, chief hayes white. as the chief mentioned, we are working hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder with the fire department to make the situation safe. our crews are on site. initial reports indicate this was a third party dig-in related to a construction project, and not in any way associated with pg&e, and as i mentioned we're working diligently and safely as quickly as possible to resolve >> reporter: can you turn the gas off yet?

>> reporter: what is taking you so long? >> when we have more information based on our crew's activity when can give you an activity. >> reporter: what is the protocol, how is this process working and why is it taking so long? >> as i mentioned, we'll have more information as soon as that's available. we're actively working the situation right now to get this resolved. >> reporter: why haven't pg&e turned off the gas yet? why haven't pg&e turned off the gas yet? >> i don't want to speculate. as i mentioned we're working as quickly as possible to get this resolved. thank you. i don't have information on that. >> reporter: all of that is under investigation. >> reporter: you mentioned there's three buildings involved. there's three buildings involved and now a fourth that's being damaged. >> there's a total of five buildings. the fire building itself at the corner of geary and parker plus four others at this point and so they're mixed commercial and residential. we anticipate some displacements and we have some reunification

sites, mel's diner, 355 geary down the street and st. mary's cathedral will open up their doors if needed and will be needed most likely tonight for the displaced residents. thebuporter: chief, have y >>yndstdi i a wh it. we have cordoned off and set up a perimeter on a block on each side of where the incident is. all those buildings were gone through and searched, a combination of police and fire to make sure residents were alerted and out and evacuated. >> reporter: how many people are evacuated? >> a total of five buildings involved at this time. i'm here -- >> reporter: the whole neighborhood, they're not to do that, in the heart of earthquake country, you would think there's a quicker way to kill the gas to the neighborhood. >> as soon as we have more information we'll have that to ouws are working actively to involve a situation. >> reporter: when the gas line is shut off, can you say how long that gas will be shut off

for neighboring people to live here when they finally can return home? >> i can't speculate that. every situation is different. this is an active situation but we should have more information for you very shortly, hopefully within the next half hour or so. >> reporter: chief, you said some people might be out of their homes tonight. >> yes. >> reporter: how many? >> no detin fife number yet. there's five buildings involved. i don't think hundreds but you know, under 100 probably but it's hard to say. >> reporter: do we expect more buildings, the fire to spread to more buildings now the last hour another building engulfed? >> we did. i have a high degree of confidence that we're doing a very good job containing it. the damage to that additional building that wasn't there an hour ago is minimal at this point, mostly water damage and some periphery exterior damage. we're doing our best. we've been at this for two hours now. the crews are doing an again, our main objective collectively is life safety.

>> reporter: [ inaudible question ]. >> that's a little early to determine. once the gas situation is mitigated, the fire shortly thereafter will be contained and controlled. we believe it's contained at this point but certainly not under control. it won't be under control until pg&e manages the gas incident. [ inaudible question ] >> undetermined at this point. >> reporter: is a ruptured gas line it's taking more than an hour and a half to clamp off, isn't the idea the shutoffs so you can do it quicker than an hour and a half? >> certainly the fire chief and as a resident, yes, the sooner the better.anhere wng yes, i would have liked to have seen it mitigated soon. but again, i want to say that it's a complex incident, and right now, i'm happy because right now we've had no report of injuries.

that's the main objective. property damage we're not happy but life is our main goal. >> reporter: it took pg&e three hours to turn off the gas the last time, is that acceptable? >> our number one priority is the safety of our public, the customers we serve and our communities. we'll work as hard as possible, safely and quickly as possible to get this situation resolved. >> reporter: do you agree it should be turned off asap? >> i agree we'll work as quickly as possible and do everything we can to ensure the safety of our customers and san francisco residents. >> one question, time for one more question, please. >> reporter: do you know'workers at hong kong lounge are accounted for? >> at this time, we have had no reports of anyone missing, but again, it's a fluid situation. so i wouldn't want to speak in absolutes, but right now, we've had no reports of anyone missing at this time or injuries. and until the fire is under control, i would suggest that we have hourly updates to the press up here.

>> so we will have our next media briefing at 4:30 at this location, 4:30. >> t >> this gentleman here will. >> as i mentiond, we will have more information. >> reporter: what are the factors? >> they have to do a lot of digging underground. >> reporter: deep? >> you're watching a live news conference, san francisco fire chief joann hayes white along with pg&e, paul doherty there addressing how long this will take before their crews can shut off that gas. that is the question that reporters kept asking, but dan, he repeatedly said, our priority is to get it down safely. we don't know when. basically not answering how long this could take and not answering whether this should have been done, could have been done, would you have liked to have seen it done sooner? >> he clearly had the line he was going to say again and again and again, and look, it's been fi started. do you think that pg&e would

have some explanation about how long it will take them, their process? is there a valve in that area? explain the process of trenching and pitching off that gas line, which they apparently are doing. why couldn't the spokesman for p governor&e explain the process the clues are urgently doing right now? i'm surprised by that, but there was some news also out of the newsly mainly from joann hayes white of the fire department, it's up to a third alarm. there's a fifth building involved, 330 geary sustained damage. >> that one is across the street. >> right. >> and we're told there is an a&r bloa a h&r block office. could you have the fire spread across the street, a quarter mile away and that is why you want to shut off the gas as soon as possible. >> that's the danger. as you can see from the helicopter, the fire hoses are

not trained on the fire. they're trained on the buildings to prevent the flames from catching those buildings on fire. it's essential that they get that fire out now and again it's been over two hours since that exploded. >> yep. >> and joann hayes white also said she did reveal under 100 people she said could be out of their homes tonight. there are people sheltering in place, others have been taken out of their homes for safety purposes. >> she also mentioned for those people who are displaced tonight, st. mary's cathedral will likely be a place that could take them in overnight and mel's diner, a landmark there on geary set up as a reunification site but once again she reiterated there have been no injuries, that's rather miraculous and eight workers who had been working for the private contractor have been can'ted for and despite the lunch service going on at the very popular hong kong lounge, they're not aware of any injuries with

regard to that restaurant. >> and we should circle back about how this all started. we understand from pg&e a third party construction crew did call 811 and get information about what gas pipes were there to actually get the utility to mark the gas line so that process happened. apparently eight to ten workers were today using that excavate yar to dig into the street and hit that gas line and as you said, it's just a miracle that none of those eight to ten people were injured when this tinge went up. >> yes. >> just imagine the impact. people are describing the flames as sounding like a jet engine coming up out of the ground and you know that heat is so intense from what we know from the san bruno gas pipeline explosion. >> that's a four-story fireball. >> exactly right. exactly right. that sounds like a jet engine, that's something neither you or i wants to see or experience in our life time. >> somebody could have been standing on that corner waiting to cross the street. that is a very busy street. anyone who knows san francisco knows geary and that area is full of businesses and

apartments and children crossing the street with their grandmothers. >> exactly right. >> it is a miracle. >> take a look at that excavator on the left and look how close it is to where those flames are emanating from and imagine the person sitting in that excavator having punctured that gas pipeline clearly. there must have been a delay between when he hit the gas pipeline, he realized his mistake and got out of there, because it wasn't an instantaneous explosion, or else he'd be gone right now. so there is no information that anybody's been hurt in this. that's the positive here, but the negative is, we're going on well over two hours, let's see, the break happened at 1:18. it's now 3:27, that's 2:10 this has been allowed to continue and the best answer we can get from pg&e is we are working on it. >> you can see the workers trenching. they're just not able to give an estimate. laura anthony has been out there

and managed to talk with a witness just moments ago, if we have there queued up. let's take a listen. >> walking, a small explosion something behind me and looked up and i saw people in front of me and they just started screaming and yelling and i turned around at that point, and i saw flames growing toward me. i thought it was a bomb for a second. kind of erupting, so i took off running down the street. when i got to the end of the block, there were a lot of people standing and watching so at that point i turned around and saw it was this big fire. >> so it looks like we have our video cut off and we're back now live. you can see overhead of this gas line break in san francisco, an excavator having cut the gas line, huge flames going up into the sky. fire crews doing their best to keep other buildings from catching on fire, but joann

hayes white moments ago revealed a fifth building has been involved, that is the h&r block office it looks like across the street. >> yes, and dan, while you were skrus ta just talking about that, we just got new information in with regard to the contractor. the private contractor, we understand the permit was issued to mci metro verizon, mastec was the construction crew involved and the permit was issued to mci metro verizon, installing fiber optic equipment. >> and apparently it looks as though mastec refused to comment. our staff at abc 7 tried to get mastec to comment on this, they are the third party construction crew that had the excavator out there today. they refused to comment on what happened. clearly these are subjects that we will be investigating in the hours and days to come. what is mastec's record? have they had any osha

violations? have they had any other incidents like this in years past? >> you're thinking about the research you'll be doing in the hours ahead. >> exactly right. >> verizon is doing this work all over the bay area all the time. >> exactly right. as we discussed earlier, pg&e was hit last december for having thousands of violations of the 811 system. they were not responding quickly enough to excavators who were trying to work around where there could be gas lines. and so pg&e has this history of also falsifying some documents about reports in the 811 system, but in this case today, it looks as though that system worked. mastec apparently contacted pg&e for the 811 clearance to dig in the area. they marked the lines and so it looks as though that process worked properly in this instance but what didn't work properly was