A UC Berkeley researcher says that automatic gas shutoff devices, like those used in Los Angeles and Japan, could cut the number of post-earthquake fires in half in San Francisco.

But the city of San Francisco has yet to embrace shutoff technology, said Charles Scawthorn, an internationally recognized expert on fires after quakes. He says Japan has long relied on gas shutoffs built into gas meters – in part because of the lessons learned from the Kanto earthquake and fire, which killed an estimated 100,000 people.

“This was truly hell on earth,” Scawthorn said of the 7.9 magnitude quake that hit Tokyo on Sept. 1, 1923.

The disaster killed more than 10,000 people outright. But far more, an estimated 80,000 lives, were lost in the 100 fires that broke out in the hours after the initial quake.

“In peacetime, it is unquestionably the largest fire fatality in history,” Scawthorn said, adding that half the 80,000 fire victims survived the quake but were caught up in what is known as a “fire whirl.”

“The winds were so strong,” he said. “They wound up generating what amounts to what are called fire whirls. They are fire tornadoes and in one location, effectively a large school yard, it killed 40,000 people who were taking shelter.”

While open cooking flames used to make lunch-time meals sparked most of the Kanto fires, gas lines are the danger today.

To counter the modern danger, Japan now requires seismically sensitive gas meters, equipped with devices that sense shaking and automatically cut off gas flow within seconds.

Scawthorn estimates there could be as many as 100 fires following a major quake in San Francisco, but the same technology could prevent half of them. That, he said, would give the city’s 44 engine companies a fighting chance to save the city.

“If you can cut those fires in half, that’s profound,” said San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin. He says the city has already led the way with strict building standards and is spending billions of dollars to assure fire crews have enough water to fight post-quake fires.

“It makes perfect sense that we put our money where our mouth is,” Peskin said. “And make sure that the city doesn’t burn down in a major earthquake.’’

Still, two decades ago, a state advisory panel concluded the benefit of preventing an estimated two dozen gas-sparked fires in a major quake would be outweighed by the costs. The panel worried about the extended delays in restoring service, in part from crews having to go out and relight pilot lights for tens of thousands of undamaged homes.

Since then, San Francisco has failed to act, even after a city task force concluded in 2017 that benefits of gas shutoff devices would be “significantly greater than the cost.”

“It’s better to have a house with no gas than no house,” said Carl Strand, a quake safety consultant who represents a firm that makes gas shut-off devices customers can install themselves.

The comparatively low-cost technology relies on a ball that simply moves into place to block gas flow in response to strong shaking.

“These have to shut within five seconds,” Strand said.

But so far, Los Angeles is the only big city in California to require automatic shutoff devices to be installed on new projects. The mandate came after 50 gas fed fires erupted following the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

In the Bay Area, Berkeley is the city to require shutoff devices on new projects.

Peskin says it’s time San Francisco did something to counter the obvious danger of gas-sparked fires.

“There is no time like the present,” he said. “I’m not going to cry about why it didn’t happen until now.”

Meanwhile, PG&E is getting behind the concept of meter-based seismic shutoffs, with a pilot project in the works to evaluate two prototype meters like those used in Japan, the company says.

Whatever technology is adopted, Scawthorn hopes the Bay Area will finally learn the 100-year-old lesson of the Kanto quake before it’s too late.

“As Mark Twain said, you know, history may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes,” he said.

What happens with the gas meters during a big earthquake? Other earthquake-prone areas have made important safety upgrades. So why isn’t it happening widespread in the Bay Area? Raj Mathai speaks with investigative reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken on this.

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LOS ALTOS HILLS (CBS SF) — A Bay Area city is pushing the installation of automatic license plate readers (ALPR) in hopes of fighting and deterring crime.

According to a city government analyst, 10 ALPRs are currently operational in Los Altos Hills, and 30 more should be operational by sometime in February.

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They will be placed at every street entrance in Los Altos Hills, as well as numerous other streets throughout the city, says the management analyst. They run 24 hours a day, and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office can use the ALPRs as a crime investigation tool.

“We hope it will make people safer, we hope it will stop people from committing crimes in our city,” said resident Rajiv Bhateja. “We have very few burglaries a year, but we have very few apartments.”

Bhateja has been a big supporter of the idea for several years and helped introduce it to the city leadership.

“Our community tends to be what we call a goal-rich environment,” he said. “I think if we can make our city and the world a little bit safer, that’s a good thing for everyone.”

Los Altos Hills partnered with Flock Safety to implement the cameras.

“Our technology is designed to capture objective evidence. We take photos of the back of a car as it drives by and use machine learning from that to identify what kind of car it is – make, model, color – unique features like bumper stickers, roof racks, aftermarket wheels and too The important thing is to identify the license plate yourself,” said Josh Thomas of Flock Safety. “They indiscriminately collect objective data from vehicles.”

Some local residents have expressed concerns about privacy.

“I’m not convinced that we really have a problem. I feel it is an invasion of my privacy,” said a Los Altos Hills resident, who asked not to be named. “I’m just really concerned about privacy issues and I’m also concerned about racial profiling.”

Thomas explained that their technology only captures still images of the vehicles’ rear license plates and features.

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“We collect vehicle information. Not people. There is no face recognition. We don’t collect anything about people. It’s just the back of a car – and in fact we don’t even know who’s driving the car.”

However, residents of Los Altos Hills have the option to opt out. They can submit a form online to prove their vehicles are registered to a Los Altos Hills address and then the system will not record any data on those vehicles.

Bhateja believes in the ALPRs.

“It’s only supposed to take pictures of rear license plates and only still pictures. So it can’t be used for traffic violations, speeding, stop signs and all that,” he said. “The sheriff needs to have a case number when accessing the information. They must have an investigative reason for looking at this data.”

According to the city, the ALPR cameras have three major benefits:
• The physical presence of a camera and accompanying street signs indicating that a recording is in progress can limit crime in the first place.
• After a crime, the data collected can give the law enforcement authorities clues for investigations.
• Cameras can send instant alerts to law enforcement agencies when a vehicle of interest is identified.

A spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office provided KPIX 5 with the following statement:
“The Sheriff’s Office is pleased to assist the City of Los Altos Hills with the introduction of License Plate Readers (LPRs). LPRs will help the Sheriff’s Office use technology to improve prevention and solve crimes. We are committed to using all available resources to improve the safety of residents of the City of Los Altos Hills.”

Los Altos Hills isn’t the first Bay Area community to use Flock’s technology.

“All over the Bay Area,” Thomas said. “Morgan Hill, Benicia, Vallejo, Colma – all up and down the Peninsula, North Bay, East Bay.”

Los Altos Hills residents who wish to opt out can do so here.

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