Family Copes With Total Loss In San Bruno Explosion
SAN BRUNO (KCBS) - A family left homeless by last month's deadly pipeline explosion struggled to come to grips with the tragedy in San Bruno, even weeks after devastation struck the tightly-knit clan.
More than 30 homes burned to the ground, leaving families devastated and homeless. Some spent weeks in nearby hotels. For one family, an extended support network provided much needed strength and sanity in a chaotic time.
KCBS Holly Quan Reporting:
Thursday would mark one month since the gas line explosion and inferno in San Bruno's Crestmoor neighborhood. For those affected, memories of that evening were vivid.
"It was the worst thing I'd ever seen," described Chris O'Neil. "I just wanted to get us out of there, alive."
That evening, O'Neil and her twin 22-year-old daughters were in their Glenview Dr. home. They thought they felt an earthquake.
"And we thought it was the big one," Chris remembered.
The explosion rocked a peaceful night for her family.
"Mary was in the family room and Colleen and I were laying on the bed, looking through the Nordstrom catalogs, fantasizing about what boots we would buy this fall. And then that happened and I went 'oh my God!' and jumped up. As we running out, the house was vibrating like there were trains running underneath it or something. And as I came out the front door there was stuff falling from the sky. You could hear it falling, almost like rain."
The gas line exploded just 100 yards away. A searing flame emerged.
"We didn't have to look back, we just had to look up and it was above us. Yeah, I didn't think we were going to be able to outrun it."
Mary, being a faster runner, escaped quickly. Chris and her other daughter found their knees buckling as they stumbled to safety.
"I kept rubbing my hair the whole time we were running because my head was so hot I thought my hair must be on fire. And I thought we were going to just naturally combust from the heat," Chris remembered.
All three escaped, though the twins suffered second and third degree burns on their arms.
"Just oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," Chris described their reactions. "Colleen was saying I'm burned, I'm hurt."
"And then we remembered that our cats were in the house, the boys, the boys, the boys," Chris said emotionally. "But then I thought I've got to get these girls out of here and I felt like I had to say something shocking so I said they're dead. The house is gone, we've got to go, we gotta move."
They got a ride to a friend's home, where Chris called her husband, Gene. He was on his way home from Oakland and could see a column of smoke.
"You never think it's your house. You never think it's your neighborhood, your house," he remarked. "This time it was me. This time it was us, but my wife and kids got out."
They considered themselves lucky, though that doesn't always stave off the anger.
"It's weird not having the privilege to go back to that house anymore," conceded Colleen. "I can't even go and say this is my neighborhood."
Chris understood how her daughter felt.
"You don't have your purse anymore. So when you go to get something, it's like we are constantly losing things because we can't remember where we put them because we don't have a place."
It's not just the tangible things, emphasized Chris, but the routine, too.
"I go to do something that I normally do like I exercise at Curves, I leave Curves and I go home. And I'm driving up San Bruno Ave. and I think, I can't go home. There is no home."
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