SAN BRUNO -- Not long after an apocalyptic fire destroyed their home, Bill and Betti Magoolaghan's 2-year-old son scrawled a picture in crayon of people surrounded by flames. They realized then he needed help.
So the boy joined his two older sisters for more than two years of therapy, learning through play and conversation how to deal with the terror of fleeing a ruptured PG&E gas pipe that obliterated several blocks of their quiet Crestmoor neighborhood on Sept. 9, 2010. The explosion and fire killed eight people, injured many others and incinerated 38 homes.
But as the fifth anniversary of the tragedy approaches, the Magoolaghans, like many other survivors of the San Bruno inferno, have found some semblance of normalcy and begun new chapters in their lives.
"Things will never be the same, but things are good. The main thing is the kids are healthy," said Bill Magoolaghan, who moved back into the neighborhood in 2012. The family now has a fourth child, who was born a month after the explosion. "There's nothing like a good night's sleep, and we didn't have a lot of those really the first year. The kids were having nightmares incessantly. My second-oldest daughter just wouldn't sleep."
Most of the people whose homes were destroyed or damaged returned to the neighborhood. New families, some with young children, joined them. And all the families who suffered losses have settled their claims against PG&E for upward of $500 million.
Still, the recovery is incomplete. Neighbors have grown increasingly frustrated with the city over the pace of the rebuilding effort. More than a dozen lots near the site of the blast are vacant or under construction -- ugly scars from a conflagration that began when a 30-inch transmission line burst at the intersection of Glenview Drive and Earl Avenue, spewing flames hundreds of feet in the air.
And for some survivors, especially those who lost loved ones in the fire, there will be no recovery.
"The physical rebuilding is taking place and will be completed," said San Bruno Mayor Jim Ruane, who will join residents for a remembrance Wednesday evening. "But the psychological rebuilding for some people will never occur completely, and for others it will take a very long time."
RISING FROM THE ASHES
Alexa Tafralis will never forget the text messages her father, Gregg, sent her in the minutes after a shoddy weld in the 54-year-old pipe beneath their neighborhood finally gave way.
The former Olympic shot-putter had just sprinted up Glenview Drive with his arms clenched in front of his face like a boxer on the ropes. His hip fractured and his skin bubbling from the heat, the elder Tafralis stabbed the buttons on his flip phone, desperate to confirm his daughter was alive. He thought a plane had crashed.
"Airplane," Gregg typed. "Where r u? R u home?"
Alexa and her mother, Mary, were both safe. Alexa likely would have been killed or badly injured if not for an impulsive decision while driving home from work. About a minute before the blast, she turned around a quarter-mile from the family home and headed to a friend's house to play basketball.
The family of fitness buffs lost all its possessions in the fire, and Gregg endured five surgeries to repair second- and third-degree burns over much of his body. He still suffers from post-traumatic stress, experiencing daily mood swings. Loud noises unsettle him.
"Mentally, it's never going to be the same," said Alexa, who once bonded with her father in the gym. Now she feels robbed of that connection. "Physically, I don't get my workout partner back. I have lost my workout partner forever."
But life has improved for the Tafralis family since the blast. Adam, Alexa's brother, moved back to the Bay Area from Canada and got married in 2012. The former standout quarterback at San Jose State now has a son and a daughter. Looking after his grandchildren is a happy distraction for Gregg.
Meanwhile, Alexa has thrown herself into a new career as a trainer and fitness model. After a couple years of stewing in numbness and anger, she has emerged with a new optimism. She said she feels "fireproof" and wants to inspire her clients to feel the same way.
"My mission is to show people you have a second chance. We're all fireproof," said Alexa, 28. "Everyone has a chance to be happier, to be anything you want."
SLOW PROGRESS
The Tafralis family lives in San Jose now, though Alexa is moving to Burlingame this month. They haven't been back to 1100 Glenview Drive since the day two weeks after the explosion when they donned white hazardous-materials suits and dug in vain through the ashes for jewelry and keepsakes.
For some of the fire victims who chose to rebuild in the old neighborhood, however, the sights and sounds of construction on vacant lots near the site of the explosion are obstacles to recovery.
"Here it is five years, and all that work isn't done yet," said Bob Hensel, 77, who rebuilt the Fairmont Drive house he shares with his wife, Nancy. "It's kind of hard to close everything out when you get constant reminders all the time."
Carolyn Gray's concern is more practical. Her rebuilt home at the intersection of Fairmont and Claremont drives sits in a "dust bowl" between construction sites that's exacerbated by the late afternoon wind gusting over the coastal mountains, she said.
"I'm just so disgusted with the dust and dirt all around," Gray, 73, said with a laugh. "My husband and I got out and tried to dust the other day because we couldn't see out of any of our windows."
All but 10 of the 38 homes that were razed have been rebuilt. The developer overseeing construction of the rest aims to finish by early next year.
It will take until the spring of 2017 for the city to finish up a massive slate of PG&E-funded work: repaving roads, pouring new sidewalks, reforesting the upper portion of Crestmoor Canyon, building a new neighborhood park, replacing streetlights, and installing new sewer, storm-drain and water lines.
But some neighbors argue the work could have proceeded more briskly if the city hadn't insisted on having one developer build all 10 of the remaining lots at once. Residents have also complained that planning guidelines and building codes have been enforced inconsistently -- what's approved for one homeowner, some say, is denied for the next.
The mayor conceded that the work has dragged but defended the decision to choose one developer. It was important to be methodical and get the reconstruction right, he said, adding the city tried to accommodate the plans of rebuilding homeowners whenever possible.
"I think some people are very pleased, some people are frustrated," Ruane said of the reconstruction. "It goes slow. Unfortunately, it's taken longer than we thought."
While rebuilding Crestmoor, the city has also dogged PG&E and the California Public Utilities Commission, working with pipeline safety advocates to expose cozy ties before and after the blast between the utility and officials who were charged with regulating it. The company was fined $1.6 billion by the PUC and faces a criminal trial in March on 27 counts of violating pipeline safety laws and one charge of obstructing justice.
"We want to make sure what happened here," Ruane said, "never happens again anywhere."
In a statement, the utility said it is "deeply sorry" for the calamity and has taken numerous steps to prevent another one.
"We will never forget the lessons of San Bruno," the statement read in part.
SUPPORT NETWORK
The families of the people who died -- Jacqueline Greig, 44, and her daughter Janessa, 13; Lavonne Bullis, 82, her son Greg, 50, and her grandson William, 17; Jessica Morales, 20; Elizabeth Torres, 81; and James Franco, 58 -- are among those who chose not to rebuild. The city plans to turn four fallowed lots into a park or open space.
But while the absence of these families has left a hole in the community, many of the survivors have forged tighter bonds. Neighbors near the blast site took part in group therapy sessions that morphed into more informal gatherings that continue to this day. On the first Wednesday of the month, anywhere from five to 15 people get together to talk about their lives, whether sharing stories from a recent vacation or venting frustration with a contractor.
Over the past several years the neighbors have helped one another deal with cancer and deaths of children and parents, said Carolyn Gray.
"We still need to come together as a group and share our experiences, both positive and negative -- to support each other, to socialize and to bring up issues of concern," Gray said.
Though Magoolaghan is not part of the group, he too feels more connected to his neighbors than ever before.
"Has it changed? Yes. Has it gotten closer? Yes. Have there been tensions in the community because of what's happened? You know, absolutely," said Magoolaghan, 51. "But it's nice that we were able to deal with things together as opposed to sort of being islands and having to deal with all this trauma and tragedy individually."
OMG, wow, so sad yes....
