A PG&E power line fell onto the street at 20th and Shotwell today, damaging a car that was parked at the intersection. Neighboring businesses said they saw sparks fly after the line went down at about 1:30 p.m. today.
Ana Alvarez had parked her car on the corner while she ran errands on Mission Street. She was gone just 45 minutes, but when she returned, police had cordoned off the section of 20th between Shotwell and South Van Ness where she’d parked.
“I didn’t think it would be my car,” she said of the black Nissan — but it was. The sedan suffered a cracked windshield and burn marks on the rear passenger door. Alvarez plans to follow the PG&E technicians’ instructions to file a claim with the company.
“We heard it, but we didn’t see it fall,” said Tiffany Barrios, a stylist at the Ginger Rubio salon. Barrios and coworker Kelle Schlax said they even saw sparks coming from beneath a car that drove over the live wire before police secured the area.
A stray pair of pants in the wire’s path soon caught fire, sending flames out from under Alvarez’s car. Barrios and Schlax said that within minutes an unidentified man ran out with a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, and the fire department responded shortly after.
Ann Bulkin, who owns Balance in Motion Physical Therapy on the corner, said she was returning from lunch at 1:40 and had to wait briefly to get back to her office. With the wire still live, however, “They were pretty strict about keeping everyone off this block. They wouldn’t let anybody walk here.”
At 2:20 p.m. the scene was cleared and police were seen rolling up the yellow caution tape.
Police officers and PG&E representatives at the scene said they had no idea what caused the wire to go down, but that PG&E will send a crew to investigate. “It appeared to happen relatively spontaneously,” said Bulkin. “That’s kind of scary.”
UPDATE 10/14: After a receiving a tip from an anonymous reader (see below), Mission Loc@l tried to confirm some details of the events Monday. We were unable to confirm any eyewitnesses who saw the clothing mentioned previously hanging on the electric line in question, nor did any witnesses actually see the power line fall.
We were, however, able to confirm the previously unidentified man who put out the fire was James Patock, 42-year-old owner of Arc Metalworks on 20th Street. Patock said he noticed his lights flickering shortly before the line went down, and went around the corner to Interstice Architects at 587 Shotwell St. to ask architect Andrew Dunbar if he’d noticed anything strange. He had.
Dunbar, whose firm’s computers are backed up with batteries against power fluctuations, says he hears the battery systems beep at least twice a week due to routine voltage drops in the Mission.
“This day, it happened two or three times in a couple hours,” he said. And then, the batteries began beeping continuously in “alarm mode.” What followed was “a kind of sci-fi sound effect,” he said, going to great lengths to demonstrate the combination of whirring and popping sounds he heard coming from the transformer near his office.
Running outside, Dunbar could see sparks coming from the fallen line, and the piece of clothing ignite under the car, something he initially thought was a “small explosion.”
While Dunbar dialed 911, Patock ran for the fire extinguisher in his shop. Patock says the Fire Department responded within minutes.
“It makes you look at all the other heads and wonder what the condition of the infrastructure is,” said Dunbar. “Those lines are pretty high tension, they’re heavy, and they’re full of voltage.”
“an unidentified man ran out with a fire extinguisher to put out the flames”
thank you, mission resident who cares.
It’s hard to imagine how a pair of pants could have gotten on the wires without having been deliberately thrown there. And there aren’t many places from which they could have been thrown. Hopefully PGE/SFPD will be able to figure out who is responsible. We all end up paying for this kind of irresponsible behavior.
Wow! Thanks so much for the info, wish I had seen you or the other when I arrived! Could I speak to you some more about this or do you know how I could get in touch with any of the other onlookers?
Police at the time didn’t have this info. You can shoot me an email.
Thanks!
Christine
The power line didn’t “spontaneously” fall onto the street. The pair of pants shown in your photograph (which I actually thought was a jacket) had been thrown onto the power line where it connects and splits into the building — causing an arc flash. I had just walked out of Mr Pickles when someone in my party who had been waiting outside told me the power line had just sparked. So I walked over there to see what was happening. Two guys were standing underneath the power line looking up at the pants. The arc flash had caused the pants and the wires to catch fire. One of the guys was on the phone, calling 911 I assumed, and the other guy seemed to be taking pictures. There were many onlookers across the street as well. Some seemed to be taking videos with their mobile phones so check YouTube in the coming days. As I got closer, the power line just burst into a series of electrical explosions, causing everyone to scurry back. The power line then fell onto that black car, cracking the windshield, and whipped-about for a bit until it came to a rest on 20th St. The burning pants landed next to the black car. The guy from the metal shop nearby brought his fire extinguisher and sprayed the burning pants, car, and wires hanging out of the building. I and the other onlookers kept traffic from driving through until the SFFD and SFPD showed up.
This could had ended worse as some people just don’t listen or pay attention. Some guy on a bike rode around the corner and right over the downed power line even though we tried to stop him. Then some guy in a gold Lexus didn’t heed the warning to stop and drove over the downed power line. As he drove over the power line, it again burst into electrical explosions. I’m not certain, as he drove around the corner onto Shotwell St. out of view, but it looked like he may have gotten a flat tire. Then again, some guy on a bike rode around a fire truck and straight towards the power line, but this time a fireman was able to stop him.