Berkeley stations are closed. More than 160,000 residents have been warned to stay indoors.
Update (9 p.m.): Good news is that all Chevron employees have been accounted for. Sirens will sound every half-hour until the smoke is clear -- literally. So as long as you hear that siren, stay inside and hug your pets. That applies to all of Richmond, San Pablo, and now El Cerrito.
Update (8:50 p.m.): Oakland police are now warning North Oakland residents to stay inside as the toxic plume of smoke is headed that way. Also, Chevron released the following statement: "We are responding to this incident as quickly as we can and are
deploying highly trained personnel to assess and manage the situation.
We will not speculate on the cause of this incident. Our priority
right now is containing the fire and protecting the health and safety of
our employees and community.
We will provide updates as more information can be confirmed."
Update (8:30 p.m.): BART has closed the Richmond station, and officials have issued a level 3 health warning, which means the fire can cause eye, nose, skin, and respiratory irritation, according to new reports. KTVU reports that refinery officials said the fire may have been caused by a pump leak on the crude unit column in the processing plant, although nothing has been confirmed yet.
Original story (6:39 p.m.) Massive plumes of black smoke and flames visible even from across the bay are rising from a Richmond-area refinery.
Richmond Police confirmed the fire is at the Chevron refinery in that city, and have issued a shelter-in-place order due to the potential of hazardous chemicals now airborne. Contra Costa Health Services urges area residents to seal cracks around doors and windows with tape or damp towels.
Police were, at this time, unable to speak about the cause of the fire or confirm if it has led to any casualties. Radio reports indicate no casualties at this time.
See below a series of photos sent from a reader on site in Point Richmond:
Update (4 p.m.):Janitors are planning to negotiate with management through the night, and hope they can reach a satisfying deal by the morning. If not, then Ahsha Safai, political organizer for the janitor's union, says a strike could come next. "The members have already authorized a strike, it's just a matter of when i will be implemented," he told SF Weekly. He says building managers are attempting to increase health care costs by as much as $600 a month -- which isn't sustainable for janitors, some who make $12 an hour.
Original story (2:29 p.m.) San Francisco janitors are planning a march through the city today in preparation for a potential strike. Meanwhile, museum docents are also threatening to walk off the job -- all of which must make San Francisco's French tourists feel very much at home.
Earlier today, workers at the de Young and Legion of Honor museums voted overwhelmingly to go on strike if need be, which means your planned day off to see art might not be that pleasurable -- if the museums even stay open. Workers are lamenting the fact that even with a $19.6 million increase in assets over the last two years, the museums are trying to increase healthcare costs -- even more for workers than management. At the same time, the museums want to "drastically reduce wages" for future workers, up to 77 percent.
"We do not want to go on strike, but we will be forced to if management refuses to work with us," said Larry Bradshaw, vice president of SEIU Local 1021. "For a nonprofit organization that is community-oriented and culturally high-minded, management's actions are appalling."
Meanwhile, disgruntled San Francisco janitors are gearing up for a strike of their own.
South Bay authorities have identified the man who was killed in a motorcycle accident on Friday as 28-year-old Sahil Cooner of San Francisco.
News reports say Cooner was riding west on Woodside Road in San Mateo County at about 1:30 p.m. when he reportedly hit a vehicle that was pulling out of the Menlo Country Club,
according to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office.
He was taken to Stanford Hospital, where he was later pronounced
dead.
On Friday afternoon, the city Controller's office released a report on the economic impact facing the city if it chooses to dabble in providing residents with public power. You couldn't time a release better -- if you were hoping no one would read it.
And that's too bad. Because, per the controller's analysis, the proposed contract with Shell Energy to inaugurate the CleanPowerSF program will cost the city millions more than the status quo, require a 77 percent spike in San Franciscans' electricity costs just to break even, and require city agencies to begin paying higher energy rates -- and, therefore, spend millions less on services -- and will actually cost the city jobs.
Spending far more money, bleeding city agencies, and costing the city jobs would still be ostensibly worthwhile to provide San Franciscans with "100 percent renewable energy," the term used, repeatedly, in the controller's analysis.
Just one thing: "100 percent renewable energy" doesn't mean what most English-speaking human beings think it does.
San Francisco police are trying to figure out what happened to a 50-year-old man who was found in a pool of blood in his garage over the weekend, in what police are calling an aggravated assault.
Officer Gordon Shyy says police were called to 1135 Ellis Street at about 12:48 p.m. on Friday to do a welfare check. When police arrived, they found the victim unconscious and bleeding.
The man was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where doctors concluded the man's injury was the result of blunt force trauma to the head. He is currently in critical condition.
The current method for executing people in California is as such: First pentobarbital, an anesthetic, knocks the person unconscious; next, pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant, paralyzes the body; and then potassium chloride, whose most common uses are as fertilizer and for state-sponsored killing, stops the heart.
Despite all its beauty, San Francisco brings out the absolute worst in us when it comes to sharing the road. As proven by Friday's unfortunate Muni sandwich, transportation in a dense city like S.F. always makes for an interesting news story.
Which is why we couldn't help ourselves when we saw photos of this driver on Market Street, which clearly illustrated his (or her) remedial driving skills.
Also, here's reason no. 2,576 we don't like minivans.
Fried chicken and wedding cake doesn't sound quite as offensive as Chinese food and donuts -- but it is.
Over the weekend the LGBT community in Denver, Colo., decided to protest cake -- specifically, wedding cake at a bakery in the suburb of Lakewood, after the owners refused to make a rainbow cake for a gay couple.
David Mullins, 28, and 31-year-old Charlie Craig say they were shocked when they arrived at the cake shop for some yummy cake-tasting and were abruptly turned away by the owner Jack Phillips, who says he likes gays but can't stand gay marriage.
The couple immediately turned to Facebook to detail their experience at Masterpiece Cakeshop, which prompted more than 1,000 angry messages to the bakery owner and a raucous protest outside the cakery over the weekend.
Police are expected to hold a news conference early this week after officers shot a man who allegedly pulled a gun on them in the city's Potrero Hill neighborhood.
On Saturday, police were called out to a home on the unit block of Dakota just before 5 p.m. on reports of a dispute. When they arrived and knocked, nobody answered the door -- so they left.
Then about 6:30, another call came in, reporting a man in his 20s with a gun near the unit block of Dakota, according to police. At that time, some other officers were towing a car near the unit block of Dakota on a separate incident when they saw a man who matched the description of the suspect with the gun.
Last week was one of the the darkest for the medical marijuana movement, with the federal Justice Department picking two of San Francisco's best-known and best-behaving licensed medical cannabis dispensaries for closure. This came mere weeks after U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag moved to close Harborside Health Center -- the nation's biggest pot club and Oakland's second-biggest taxpayer.
Could things get much worse? Well, sure -- Haag could close all of San Francisco's dispensaries, as she is rumored to be considering to do by Christmas, according to sources.
Enter Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the Oakland Democrat who is mad as hell. She introduced legislation in Washington that would halt Haag and her three California counterparts in their tracks.
