David Nebenzahl wrote:

Been watching the teevee nooz coverage of the San Bruno [San Francisco
peninsula] gas main explosion and conflagration. Wow.

I used to live about a mile away from that spot, across Skyline Blvd.;
used to shop at the Lunardi's just across the road.

The news reported lots of people saying they'd been smelling gas in the
neighborhood for the last week or so. One can only hope that PG&E (Pure
Greed & Extortion) gets raked over the coals, literally, for this one.

A few comments on this:

- People said they had smelled gas for a week, did any of those people
bother to report it?

- People laugh at me when I say Nat. Gas is *not* safe and should not be
allowed in residential areas, yet nearly every day there is a house
explosion due to a nat. gas leak, and every year or two a big incident
like this one. I recall an apartment building in the northeast (NJ?)
being leveled by one of these nat. gas transmission lines exploding
under it.

- Gas detectors are pretty inexpensive, they're included in every RV.
Various technologies exist to allow the gas monopolies to install gas
monitors in the areas where they pipe their dangerous product. It would
not be especially expensive to install remote gas detectors in the area
that would not rely on some person actually calling the monopoly to
report a possible gas leak. The gas detectors also are more sensitive
than human noses so they could detect a small leak blowing past.