Posted on 05/19/2008 3:24:39 PM PDT by james500
Several floors of a Hilton hotel under construction in downtown San Diego have been badly damaged in an apparent explosion. There are no immediate reports of injuries.
About four lower floors of the waterfront skyscraper near the San Diego Convention Center showed serious damage after the Monday afternoon incident.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Did this happen during coffee break? It is San Diego, Could have been repercussions as a result of consuming an industrial strength bean burrito from the Roach Coach.
My first thought was union activity.
You can see the water heaters in the room on the helicopter coverage. Probably a slow leak in one of the gas lines built up until it was ignited by the boiler next door.
You’re welcome and that’s kind of you, Jet Jaguar.
Thanks. I was looking for a photo but couldn’t find one.
5 critical injuries
3 in UCSD burn center (sounds like 3 of those 5)
and 8 others injured (varying degree)
Still saying 13 total at hospitals.
Fire dept guy says that they are amazed that there were not more injuries and AMAZED that the injuries were not far more serious given the strength and degree of the explosion.
The response was incredible and incredibly fast per all those on scene that are talking.
There will be a presser at 4:30 local time but again saying it’s definitely NOT terrorism and is related to what’s going on at the construction site.
There had been reports of a gas leak on the site prior to the explosion and they were trying to find the source of the leak and then the explosion happened.
There were people ACTIVELY looking for the source of the leak right before it happened. It took place in an extremely heavily fortified room with mechanical equipment which may have helped limit the extent of the injuries.
http://photos.signonsandiego.com/gallery1.5/ (photos here)
In my last post I linked to pictures but I’m lousy at inserting them if you’re willing to try or interested! Those are the best I’ve found so far as most of the local news stations only have video on their sites at the moment.
There are a few others here http://www.nbcsandiego.com/index.html but the better ones are on my post prior to this!
Thanks!
Funny you should mention that, the Convention Center (right next door) is hosting Digestive Disease Week starting today.
No need to inline the pictures if you guys label the URLs like you did. I appreciate the assist.
Photo 22, in the lower right hand corner, there’s two water heaters side by side, the right one appears severely damaged.
Could be a simple matter of not fully closing valves on gas welder tank etc..
You’re welcome James.
Breaking news -— so details, photos, videos pop up later.
I also heard them just mentioning something tied to the boiler (which you had also pointed out earlier!)
Forget on scene-investigators...you seem to have done quite an accurate job via images so far! ha ha!
THANKS to a special freepmailer for this update:
Note: Photo and Video included.
http://www.kusi.com/home/19081874.html
“Explosion Rocks Downtown Hotel - Watch Live Streaming Coverage”
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Police shut down Harbor Drive in the area while investigating the blast.
A city bomb squad and search-dog teams were on scene shortly after the explosion, preparing to enter and begin the process of determining the cause.
Personnel with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also went to the site to gather evidence.”
Story Updated: May 19, 2008 at 3:59 PM PDT
I think we might be on to something.
.
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