SEATTLE (AP) — Once Josh Jacobs slipped past the last line of Seattle’s defense, all that was in front of him was open field and a place among the greatest single-game performances in NFL history.

Jacobs sprinted 86 yards for a game-ending touchdown and the Las Vegas Raiders won in overtime for the second straight week, beating the Seahawks 40-34 on Sunday.

“When I hit the gap, I see a big hole and I just tried to run as fast as I can,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs finished with a franchise record of 229 yards rushing and two scores. He also had six catches for 74 yards, and his 303 yards from scrimmage were the most in franchise history and the seventh-most in a game in the Super Bowl era.

Jacobs had never had a touchdown run longer than 28 yards, and his extraordinary dash was reminiscent of the Raiders’ Bo Jackson running untouched for a long TD against the Seahawks at the Kingdome on Nov. 30, 1987.

Not bad for a guy who’d been listed as questionable for the game with a calf injury. There was nothing uncertain about Jacobs’ play once he took the field.

“To see him finish like that, I know what he’s been dealing with, I know how hard he works. It was really cool to see that,” Raiders quarterback Derek Carr said.

Las Vegas (4-7) finished with 283 yards rushing and its 576 total yards were the third-most ever allowed by the Seahawks (6-5), who fell one game behind San Francisco in the NFC West.

“He’s hard to bring down. He’s a tough runner with good balance. You really gotta wrap him up,” Seattle defensive tackle Shelby Harris said. “He’s not one of those backs that gets touched and falls. He makes his money off breaking tackles and getting those extra yards.”

Las Vegas forced overtime thanks to Carr’s 5-yard touchdown toss to Foster Moreau in the corner of the end zone with 1:54 remaining that made it 34-all. Carr threw an interception on the first play of the game but finished 25 of 36 for 295 yards and three touchdowns.

The Raiders also got a break when Jacobs appeared to fumble inside the 10 just before Moreau’s touchdown catch, but officials ruled his forward progress had been stopped.

“It started from the first play to the last play. The first play is an interception and the last play is a touchdown,” Raiders coach Josh McDaniels said. “There was a lot of swings in the game.”

Seattle lost its second straight after falling to Tampa Bay two weeks ago in Germany. Geno Smith was 27 of 37 for 328 yards and two touchdowns. But Seattle’s rushing attack struggled for the second straight game, although Kenneth Walker III ran for two TDs.

In overtime, Daniel Carlson missed a 56-yard field goal attempt on Las Vegas’ first possession. But Seattle went three-and-out, and on the next play from scrimmage, Jacobs broke free.

Jacobs became the fourth player in the Super Bowl era with at least 300 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns in a game, and the first since Adrian Peterson set the single-game record for rushing yards (296) in 2007. He’s the first player since at least 1950 with at least 225 yards rushing and 70 yards receiving in the same game.

“It’s kind of crazy, coming in and not knowing if I was going to play, looking the guys in the eyes and telling them they’re going to get everything they’ve got in me,” Jacobs said.

The 86-yard TD run was the fourth-longest overtime touchdown in league history.

“Josh was really terrific today. He had a great game and we didn’t tackle as well as we needed to and we didn’t scheme as well as we needed to,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said.

For most of the game, it appeared Las Vegas would squander its chance to win despite its unstoppable rushing attack. McDaniels twice decided to kick field goals instead of keeping his offense on the field. He also called a head-scratching toss sweep to Jacobs on fourth down in the fourth quarter that Seattle stopped.

But Carr was terrific on the tying drive in regulation. He went 6 of 8, including a spectacular one-handed catch by Davante Adams for 28 yards, and he floated the touchdown pass to Moreau perfectly into the back corner.

Seattle had a final chance to win in regulation and appeared to have a first down near midfield on Smith’s pass to DK Metcalf with 57 seconds left. But after a lengthy review it was determined Metcalf didn’t have control of the ball as he rolled over and hit the sideline. Smith was sacked by Maxx Crosby on the next play and Seattle punted.

INJURIES

Raiders DT Andrew Billings limped off the field in the fourth quarter and was later carted to the locker room. … Seattle S Ryan Neal suffered an elbow injury in overtime and backup Josh Jones took a poor angle on Jacobs’ winning run.

THROWBACKS

The Seahawks announced that sometime during the 2023 season the team will wear throwback uniforms with the silver helmets, blue jerseys and silver pants Seattle sported in the 1990s.

UP NEXT

Raiders: Host the Los Angeles Chargers next Sunday.

Seahawks: At the Los Angeles Rams next Sunday.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

The post Jacobs caps large day with TD in OT, Raiders beat Seahawks – KGET 17 appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Officials in California ordered evacuations in a high-risk coastal area where mudslides killed 23 people in 2018 as a huge storm barreled into the state Wednesday, bringing high winds and rain that threatened widespread flooding and knocked out power to more than 100,000 people.

The storm was expected to dump up to 6 inches (152.4 millimeters) of rain in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area where most of the region would remain under flood warnings into late Thursday night. In Southern California, the storm was expected to peak in intensity overnight into early Thursday morning with Santa Barbara and Ventura counties likely to see the most rain, forecasters said.

“We anticipate that this may be one of the most challenging and impactful series of storms to touch down in California in the last five years,” said Nancy Ward, the new director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at a news conference that the city was “preparing for a war.” Crews cleared clogged storm drains, tried to move homeless people into shelters and passed out emergency supplies and ponchos to those who refused to go.

The city distributed so many sandbags to residents that supplies temporarily ran out.

Powerful winds gusting to 85 mph (136 kmh) or more forced the cancellation of more than 70 flights at San Francisco International Airport and downed trees and power lines. Firefighters rescued a family after a tree fell onto their car. The fire department reported “large pieces of glass” fell off the Fox Plaza tower near the Civic Center, although no injuries were reported. It was “highly possible” the damage to the skyscraper was wind-related, the department tweeted.

The new storm left more than 100,000 customers in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Coast without power.

The storm is one of three so-called atmospheric river storms in the last week to reach the drought-stricken state. California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to allow for a quick response and to aid in cleanup from another powerful storm that hit just days earlier.

In Southern California, evacuations were ordered for those living in areas burned by three recent wildfires in Santa Barbara County, where heavy rain forecast for overnight could cause widespread flooding and unleash debris flows.

County officials did not have a firm number for how many people were under evacuation orders, but Susan Klein-Rothschild, a spokesperson in the county’s emergency operations center, said sheriff’s deputies went door-to-door and contacted at least 480 people.

Among the towns ordered to evacuate was Montecito, where five years ago huge boulders, mud and debris swept down mountains through the town to the shoreline, killing 23 people and destroying more than 100 homes. The town is home to many celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan.

“What we’re talking about here is a lot of water coming off the top of the hills, coming down into the creeks and streams and as it comes down, it gains momentum and that’s what the initial danger is,” Montecito Fire Department Chief Kevin Taylor said.

Elsewhere, a 45-mile (72-kilometer) stretch of the coastal Highway 1 running through Big Sur was closed Wednesday evening in anticipation of flooding and rock falls. Further north, a 25-mile (40-kilometer) stretch of Highway 101 was closed due to several downed trees.

Drivers were urged to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary, especially with heavy snow expected in the mountains.

The storm came days after a New Year’s Eve downpour led to the evacuations of people in rural Northern California communities and the rescue of several motorists from flooded roads. A few levees south of Sacramento were damaged.

On Wednesday, authorities in south Sacramento County found a body in a submerged car — one of at least four victims of flooding from that storm.

Evacuation orders were in place at Santa Cruz County’s Paradise Park along the swiftly moving San Lorenzo River, as well as in areas along the Pajaro River. Residents who fled wildfires in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 2020 were packing their bags as the towns of Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton were all warned they should be prepared to evacuate.

Sonoma County authorities issued an evacuation warning for a string of towns along the Russian River, which was expected to reach flood stage on Thursday.

The storms won’t be enough to officially end the state’s ongoing drought, now entering its fourth year. The US Drought Monitor showed that most of California is in severe to extreme drought. Since the state’s major reservoirs are low, they have plenty of room to fill with more water from the storm, officials said.

Trees already stressed from years of limited rain are more likely to fall now that the ground is suddenly saturated and winds are heavy. That could cause widespread power outages or create flood hazards, said Karla Nemeth, director of the state’s Department of Water Resources.

“We are in the middle of a flood emergency and also in the middle of a drought emergency,” she said during an emergency briefing.

Storms also took a toll elsewhere in the US In the Midwest, ice and heavy snow this week closed schools in Minnesota and western Wisconsin and caused a jet to go off an icy taxiway after landing in a snowstorm in Minneapolis. No passengers were injured, Delta airlines said.

In the South, a possible tornado damaged homes, downed trees and flipped a vehicle on its side in Montgomery, Alabama, early Wednesday.

In Illinois, staff from the National Weather Service’s Chicago office planned to survey storm damage on Wednesday following at least six tornadoes, the largest number of rare January tornadoes recorded in the state since 1989.

___

Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco, Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Rick Callahan in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.

The post Enormous storm swamps California, with San Francisco mayor ‘making ready for a conflict’ appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Officials in California ordered evacuations in a high-risk coastal area where mudslides killed 23 people in 2018 as a huge storm barreled into the state Wednesday, bringing high winds and rain that threatened widespread flooding and knocked out power to more than 100,000 people.

The storm was expected to dump up to 6 inches (152.4 millimeters) of rain in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area where most of the region would remain under flood warnings into late Thursday night. In Southern California, the storm was expected to peak in intensity overnight into early Thursday morning with Santa Barbara and Ventura counties likely to see the most rain, forecasters said.

“We anticipate that this may be one of the most challenging and impactful series of storms to touch down in California in the last five years,” said Nancy Ward, the new director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at a news conference that the city was “preparing for a war.” Crews cleared clogged storm drains, tried to move homeless people into shelters and passed out emergency supplies and ponchos to those who refused to go.

The city distributed so many sandbags to residents that supplies temporarily ran out.

Powerful winds gusting to 85 mph (136 kmh) or more forced the cancellation of more than 70 flights at San Francisco International Airport and downed trees and power lines. Firefighters rescued a family after a tree fell onto their car. The fire department reported “large pieces of glass” fell off the Fox Plaza tower near the Civic Center, although no injuries were reported. It was “highly possible” the damage to the skyscraper was wind-related, the department tweeted.

The new storm left more than 100,000 customers in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Coast without power.

The storm is one of three so-called atmospheric river storms in the last week to reach the drought-stricken state. California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to allow for a quick response and to aid in cleanup from another powerful storm that hit just days earlier.

In Southern California, evacuations were ordered for those living in areas burned by three recent wildfires in Santa Barbara County, where heavy rain forecast for overnight could cause widespread flooding and unleash debris flows.

County officials did not have a firm number for how many people were under evacuation orders, but Susan Klein-Rothschild, a spokesperson in the county’s emergency operations center, said sheriff’s deputies went door-to-door and contacted at least 480 people.

Among the towns ordered to evacuate was Montecito, where five years ago huge boulders, mud and debris swept down mountains through the town to the shoreline, killing 23 people and destroying more than 100 homes. The town is home to many celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan.

“What we’re talking about here is a lot of water coming off the top of the hills, coming down into the creeks and streams and as it comes down, it gains momentum and that’s what the initial danger is,” Montecito Fire Department Chief Kevin Taylor said.

Elsewhere, a 45-mile (72-kilometer) stretch of the coastal Highway 1 running through Big Sur was closed Wednesday evening in anticipation of flooding and rock falls. Further north, a 25-mile (40-kilometer) stretch of Highway 101 was closed due to several downed trees.

Drivers were urged to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary, especially with heavy snow expected in the mountains.

The storm came days after a New Year’s Eve downpour led to the evacuations of people in rural Northern California communities and the rescue of several motorists from flooded roads. A few levees south of Sacramento were damaged.

On Wednesday, authorities in south Sacramento County found a body in a submerged car — one of at least four victims of flooding from that storm.

Evacuation orders were in place at Santa Cruz County’s Paradise Park along the swiftly moving San Lorenzo River, as well as in areas along the Pajaro River. Residents who fled wildfires in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 2020 were packing their bags as the towns of Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton were all warned they should be prepared to evacuate.

Sonoma County authorities issued an evacuation warning for a string of towns along the Russian River, which was expected to reach flood stage on Thursday.

The storms won’t be enough to officially end the state’s ongoing drought, now entering its fourth year. The US Drought Monitor showed that most of California is in severe to extreme drought. Since the state’s major reservoirs are low, they have plenty of room to fill with more water from the storm, officials said.

Trees already stressed from years of limited rain are more likely to fall now that the ground is suddenly saturated and winds are heavy. That could cause widespread power outages or create flood hazards, said Karla Nemeth, director of the state’s Department of Water Resources.

“We are in the middle of a flood emergency and also in the middle of a drought emergency,” she said during an emergency briefing.

Storms also took a toll elsewhere in the US In the Midwest, ice and heavy snow this week closed schools in Minnesota and western Wisconsin and caused a jet to go off an icy taxiway after landing in a snowstorm in Minneapolis. No passengers were injured, Delta airlines said.

In the South, a possible tornado damaged homes, downed trees and flipped a vehicle on its side in Montgomery, Alabama, early Wednesday.

In Illinois, staff from the National Weather Service’s Chicago office planned to survey storm damage on Wednesday following at least six tornadoes, the largest number of rare January tornadoes recorded in the state since 1989.

___

Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco, Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Rick Callahan in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.

The post Big storm swamps California, with San Francisco mayor ‘getting ready for a conflict’ appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

A sweeping office development on 28.5 acres comprising 2.8 million square feet over six buildings is poised to be constructed in South San Francisco.

The development, slated for a site bordering San Bruno adjacent to The Shops at Tanforan, is the latest in an intensifying life-science boom on the Peninsula, of which South San Francisco is at the epicenter.

The proposal gained Planning Commission approval last week and will go next before the city councils in South San Francisco and San Bruno for a final signoff. If all goes according to plan, construction will begin this year, with the final phase wrapping up in 2030.

Between 5,000 and 11,000 people would be employed at the campus, depending on tenants, according to a city report, and buildings would range from three to seven stories, with a maximum height of 120 feet dictated by the nearby airport. A new public road running east-west through the site would also be built, as would two parking structures comprising 1,095 spaces.

Plans further indicate a restaurant, bar and park on-site, in addition to infrastructure upgrades including bike lanes, pedestrian space improvements and nearby intersection redesigns to handle increased traffic. City planners hope employees will use car alternatives like public transit to commute to work, given the site’s proximity to the San Bruno BART station adjacent to the Tanforan mall.

The developer, Menlo Park-based Lane Partners, is proposing a community center to also be included, which could be run in conjunction with the city to offer space for nonprofits and community programming. A payment of $25 million to the city would be part of the agreement, to be spent at the city’s discretion, on top of another $50 million in impact fees that would go to affordable housing and infrastructure upgrades.

City planners expressed hope the developments could revitalize the area, which is currently occupied by several industrial warehouses and distribution buildings and large surface level parking lots.

A residential neighborhood directly to the south of the site in San Bruno could also stand to benefit, as the project would include a park space with a walkway, community garden and children’s play area along Tanforan Avenue adjacent to the homes where there are currently truck loading areas.

“The community benefits are great, the design is amazing, it’s going to transform that whole area … I’m fully in support of the project,” Planning Commission Chair Sam Shihadeh said.

The project has been in the works for at least five years as the developer has worked to acquire the parcels that make up the project site. The Planning Commission last year reviewed a proposal that did not include a corner lot at 80 Tanforan Ave., which was added in the most recent plans to include a parking garage.

The first phase of construction is planned to last about two years, and would include the southern buildings, including the restaurant space and community center, which account for 680,000 square feet.

“I think overall we’ll see a net positive from the construction of this project and development of this site,” Planning Commissioner JulieAnn Murphy said, who noted the new road and surrounding street improvements as a particular benefit.

The Tanforan mall is set to undergo a similar transformation into a biotech campus, potentially also with 1,000 units of housing. That project is envisioned as having 2 million or more square feet, although formal plans have yet to be submitted.

The San Bruno City Council plans to meet next week to discuss the Southline project, and the South San Francisco City Council will likely deliberate on the plans mid-July.

The post Large Workplace campus OK’d in South San Francisco | Native Information appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

In California overall, prices dropped year-over-year, as sales collapsed, supply more than doubled. No dear, this isn’t just a seasonal dip.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

San Francisco and Silicon Valley are now in the solid leadership role of the housing bust playing out in California with sales collapsing and prices heading south from the peak in April at an astonishing pace.

Just about everything that could come together came together. After a two-year outflux of workers due to working from anywhere, there came the collapse of the startup and crypto scenes, starting in 2021 and continuing unabated, leading to the early entries into my pantheon of Imploded Stocks. In early 2022 came the spike in mortgage rates. In mid-2022 came the downturn in employment at Big Tech. By that time, the Fed had been hiking its policy rates relentlessly, and Quantitative Tightening had kicked off. This was punctuated over the past two months by the chaotic dismantling of the workforce at Twitter and its ecosystem.

Local budgets have fallen into deep deficits – although most are still flush with cash from the pandemic funds received from the federal government and the state.

Vacant office space that is on the market for lease and sublease continues to balloon, while landlords have started to file for huge reductions in assessment values ​​to lower their property taxes, which is going to cut revenues further.

This comes garnished by stories in the New York Times that Twitter stopped paying rent on its leased office spaces, and that it was instructed not to pay vendors. At least one of those unpaid vendors – a Silicon Valley company whose software Twitter had licensed – filed a lawsuit last week in the San Francisco Superior Court for nonpayment. It stated, “shortly after Musk’s purchase of Twitter closed, Twitter refused to pay the outstanding quarterly invoice, which was due on November 30, 2022, and Twitter disclaimed any obligation to pay any future invoices…”

These are all signs that the housing market is going to get a lot messier. Prices have plunged the most in San Francisco, followed by the Silicon Valley counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara.

In San Francisco.

The median price of single-family houses sold in November in San Francisco plunged by 11.4% from October to $1.50 million, and by 27% from the peak in April, according to the California Association of Realtors. A nasty-looking chart:

Condo prices plunged by 4.3% from the prior month to $1.15 million, and by 9.5% year-over-year. Since the peak in April, the median condo price is down by 15.5%. Condo sales in November have collapsed by 49%.

Seasonally, the lowest months are December and January. So that’s still to come.

But who is going to buy in the spring selling season? Prices normally rise as demand picks up in the spring; but who will be the exuberant tech workers that will want to overpay for a house by borrowing against the collapsed value of their stock options? Those lucky ones that still have jobs and stock options?

The housing markets in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are tied to the boom-and-bust cycles of the startup scene – now combined with the crypto scene and cryptos – and they’re tied to the stocks of startups and big tech and social media companies in the area, to the jobs that have to be done locally, and to the value of the stock options. All of them are puking.

Year-over-year, the median price of single-family houses in San Francisco plunged by 21%, the sixth month in a row of year-over-year declines. It was the biggest year-over-year plunge since the peak of Housing Bust 1:

Silicon Valley, San Mateo County.

The median price of single-family houses in San Mateo County, which forms the northern part of Silicon Valley, plunged by 6.2% from October to $1.78 million, and by 26% from the peak in April.

Year-over-year, the median house price plunged by 20%.

Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County.

Santa Clara County, which forms the southern part of Silicon Valley and includes the Bay Area’s largest city, San Jose, is lagging behind but is moving right along. The median price of single-family houses dropped by 1.5% in November from October to $1.60 million, and by 19% from the peak in April:

Year-over-year, the median house price dropped by 5.5%, the first significant year-over-year decline in this cycle. Prices had already undergone significant year-over-year declines in 2018 and 2019, and were on a downward path until the trillions in money-printing, the surge in the stock market, and the interest rate repression began to boost prices again.

Currently, Santa Clara County lags San Francisco and San Mateo by a few months, it seems.

In all of California.

Sales of single-family houses in California collapsed by 47.7% in November, compared to a year ago, the biggest decline since 1980, according to the California Association of Realtors. Condo sales collapsed by 46%.

Unsold inventory more than doubled year-over-year to a supply of 3.3 months, and days on the market also more than doubled – before sellers pulled the unsold homes off the market again.

For all of California, the median price of single-family houses plunged another 3.0% in November from October, which pushed the price down year-over-year (-0.6%). The median condo price fell 2.1% in November from October, which whittled down the year-over-year gain to just 2.7%.

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The post San Francisco & Silicon Valley Housing Markets Puke Enormous Worth Drops, as Startups, Crypto, Tech, Social Media Make Whole Mess appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

English

A planned 11-story apartment building could bring 189 homes to San Francisco, if it is approved at a Thursday Planning Commission meeting.

The building would be located at 1500 15th St. in the Mission District, which is currently a parking lot.

Kansas-based developer Elsey Partners is behind the project. It also has a similar development in the works across the street at South Van Ness Avenue.

The 1500 15th St. building will feature a rooftop deck, dining room and lounge. Additionally, each residential floor from the second levels through to the 11th floor will have a shared living space at the corner.

1500 15th Street amenity rooftop rendering by Prime Design. | Courtesy of Elsey Partners LLC

Of the 189 units—which will be spread evenly across 10 floors—25 will be priced as affordable housing. Each unit will be the same size, resembling a studio apartment with a convertible murphy bed, full bathroom, fridge, cooktop and a microwave.

The application states that the structure will also have space for retail businesses and 64-bicycle parking spaces.

So see

The San Francisco Planning Commission is scheduled to review the plans on Thursday at 1 pm If approved, the Board of Supervisors would have final say on the plans.

The commission will meet at the Commission Chambers in City Hall. The meeting will also be streamed to the public online.

Building housing is notoriously difficult in San Francisco. Last year, the Planning Commission approved a 495-unit complex on the site of a Nordstrom’s parking lot at 460 Stevenson St., only to have the Board of Supervisors put the development on hold after a fierce lobbying campaign.

English

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English

A San Francisco home with a large light-up “YOLO” sign in the backyard could be yours for around $4.5 million.

The Russian Hill home at 1268 Lombard Street features three bedrooms, three bathrooms, across 2,550 square feet with a private garage, roof deck and a spacious backyard—well, spacious by San Francisco standards.

‘YOLO,’ means ‘you only live once,’ for those unfamiliar with the term. It was widely popularized by Canadian rapper Drake in his 2011 banger, The Motto, featuring Lil Wayne.

Although the term might date back to the early 90s.

A three bedroom, three bathroom Russian Hill home listed for $4.5 million features a light-up reminder to live life in the moment. | Courtesy of Redfin

Denise Kohne, a realtor with Compass who listed the property for sale, said the sign was there when the current owners purchased the home in 2018.

“We obviously wanted to include it with the sale, pass it on,” Kohne said.

So see

In addition to the reminder to live life to the fullest, you can also enjoy a home office and laundry services on the main floor—if you did decide to splash over $4 million on the house that is.

If you want to see the sign in all its hedonistic glory for yourself, the next open house is Sunday, after all—you only live once.

English

The post San Francisco Dwelling With Large ‘YOLO’ Signal Listed at $4.5M appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Incredible footage shows the inside of Old Faithful Geyser in 1991

Yellowstone National Park covers some 3,500-square-miles of the US and is home to some of the world’s most iconic hydrothermal geysers and fumaroles. These include the iridescent colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring, the bubbling mud cauldrons that are the Artists Paint Pots and—of course—Old Faithful, the magnificent cone geyser that erupts a spray of water and steam roughly every 44–125 minutes. As millions of tourists marvel each year over the park’s many hydrothermal spectacles, so do earth scientists as they attempt to plumb the underground systems that formed and maintain them.

In their study, geophysicist Professor W. Steven Holbrook of Virginia Tech and his colleagues conducted special, airborne scientific surveys of Yellowstone using a special instrument called “SkyTEM”, which consists of a large loop of wire suspended from a helicopter.

The system — which emits repeated electromagnetic signals into the ground and measures the response of electrically conductive bodies — allowed them to identify areas underground with unusual electrical and magnetic properties.

Prof Holbrook said: “The combination of high electrical conductivity and low magnetization is like a fingerprint of hydrothermal activity that shows up very clearly in the data. The method is essentially a hydrothermal pathway detector.”

By making repeated passes over the path, the team were able to probe the subsurface along some 2,500 miles of so-called helicopter lines, from which they could create stunning maps of the subsurface “plumbing” under Yellowstone that supplies geysers such as Old Faithful.

Prof Holbrook added: “One of the unique aspects of this dataset is its extensive coverage of this huge system.

“We were not able just to look deep beneath the hydrothermal features, but also to see how adjacent features might be connected in the subsurface across great distances. That’s never been possible before.”

Old Faithful (pictured) is Yellowstone National Park’s most iconic geyser (Image: Getty Images)

Pictured: a survey line. Blue areas are conductive pathways while red are resistive lava flows (Image: Virginia Tech)

The researcher found that, perhaps unsurprisingly, the nature of Yellowstone’s hot springs are profoundly influenced by the geology of the vast national park.

Hot hydrothermal fluids — comprising both water and dissolved gases and minerals — were found to ascend vertically from depths of more than 0.6 miles into the park’s major hydrothermal fields, traveling along faults and fractures within the rock.

As they complete this journey, the fluids mix with the shallower groundwaters that flow both beneath and within the park’s lava flow deposits.

According to the team, the findings help to fill a longstanding gap in our understanding of the deep hydrothermal system that fuels Yellowstone’s iconic geysers and fumaroles.

READ MORE: Yellowstone volcano warning: ‘Huge rocks’ could ‘crush’ public

Pictured: the iridescent colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park (Image: Getty Images)

Previous studies have examined the park’s surface hydrothermal features — such as, for example, the eruptive intervals of the geysers, the chemistry and temperature of the mud pots and springs and the unique bacteria that thrive in these extreme environments.

Others, meanwhile, have used seismic data to learn about the earthquakes and deeper heat sources far beneath Yellowstone — but little had been known about the exact nature of the connection between these deep fluid sources and the surface features.

As Prof Holbrook put it: “Our knowledge of Yellowstone has long had a subsurface gap.

“It’s like a ‘mystery sandwich’ — we know a lot about the surface features from direct observation and a fair amount about the magmatic and tectonic system several kilometers down from geophysical work, but we don’t really know what’s in the middle.

“This project has enabled us to fill in those gaps for the first time.”

One such mystery the study has addressed concerns whether or not different hydrothermal areas of the park — exhibiting different chemistries and temperatures — might be supplied by different deep fluid sources.

The team found that the deep structure beneath areas like the Norris Geyser Basin and the Lower Geyser Basin is remarkably similar, suggesting that the observed surface differences are actually the result of variable degrees for mixing with shallow groundwater.

Pictured: the Artists Paint Pots, Yellowstone National Park (Image: Getty Images)

Paper author and geophysicist Dr Carol Finn of the US Geological Survey said: “While the airborne data were still being collected, we saw the first images over Old Faithful and knew instantly that our experiment had worked

“We could, for the first time, image the fluid pathways that had long been speculated.

“Our work has sparked considerable interest across a range of disciplines, including biologists looking to link areas of groundwater and gas mixing to regions of extreme microbiological diversity, geologists wanting to estimate volumes of lava flows, and hydrologists interested in modeling flow paths of groundwater and thermal fluid.

“With the paper as a guide and the release of the data and models, we will enable research in these diverse scientific communities.”

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Pictured: study author and geophysicist Professor W. Steven Holbrook of Virginia Tech (Image: Virginia Tech)

The researchers’ study may be complete — but Yellowstone still holds plenty of mysteries.

In future studies, for example, Prof Holbrook said that they would like to look for further evidence for distance connections between isolated underground hydrothermal areas.

The SkyTEM data, he explained, has already revealed evidence for subsurface linkages between hydrothermal systems in Yellowstone that are up to six miles apart.

Prof Holbrook added: “That might have implications for the co-evolution of thermophilic bacteria and Archaea.”

“The notion that airborne geophysical data could illuminate something about the life of microscopic organisms living around hot springs is a fascinating idea.”

The team have also released their geophysical scans, allowing other researchers to conduct their own analyzes delving into the remarkable dataset.

Such, Prof Holbrook said, is “so big that we’ve only scratched the surface with this first paper. I look forward to continuing to work on this data and to seeing what others come up with, too.

“It’s going to be a data set that keeps on giving.”

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Nature.

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Amazon’s signature smiley blue logos are spreading across southeast San Francisco’s industrial landscape. And not everyone is happy about it.

The second most valuable company in the world, Amazon has been gobbling up space throughout the southeast corner of the city, taking advantage of zoning meant to preserve blue-collar jobs in a market in which housing and office space has typically generated higher revenues.

At 888 Minnesota St., at the foot of a slow street and across from Esprit Park, Amazon has established an UltraFastFresh logistics center. A half-mile southeast at 435 23rd St., just to the south of the Potrero Power Station, a large sign outside a 75,000 square foot warehouse says “welcome Amazonians.” And further to the south, at 749 Toland St., Amazon has a 112,000 square foot delivery hub.

But Amazon’s biggest and most controversial incursion into San Francisco is a proposed 725,000 square foot delivery hub at 900 7th St., a six-acre rectangular parcel in Showplace Square Amazon bought for $200 million. For decades that site was home to garbage trucks, a fleet of 300 that each morning would rumble out onto the streets of Showplace Square at an hour the streets were still dark and most city residents still in bed.

Now the trash trucks are gone — the garbage company Recology relocated them to Brisbane — but a proposal from the new property owner is causing consternation from neighbors who say that a heavy industrial use no longer fits in a creative neighborhood that has evolved into a mix of housing, design and artist spaces, light “advanced” manufacturing and an expanding California College of the Arts campus.

Amazon plans to expand into San Francisco by turning this location at 900 7th St., and others, into facilities for the company.

Samantha Laurey/The Chronicle

David Meckel, senior adviser to the president at CCA, said three daily shifts of 400 workers would generate 2,800 car trips, in addition to the 70 Amazon trucks that will be coming and going from the facility. The traffic could create a pedestrian nightmare for CCA’s 1,600 students as well as for residents at 888 7th St, a 224-unit that overlooks the future Amazon site.

“To me it’s not about Amazon, it’s about the intensity of the use,” said Meckel. “I’d have the same concerns if it were FedEx or UPS. For me it’s about urban design.”

Will Roscoe, who lives at 888 7th St., said the pollution and traffic would worsen air quality in a neighborhood in which freeways and Caltrain already generate high levels of particulate matter. About a decade ago, Roscoe, who works for a nonprofit, was evicted from a building in the Western Addition. He feels like the Amazon project will once again force him to move.

“Hundreds of people now have come in to make this their neighborhood and this just really turns the clock back to a massive usage that is antithetical to a livable neighborhood for people with children, seniors,” he said. “It’s contrary to that.”

But while a busy distribution center may feel out of sync with Showplace Square’s current vibe, it is in fact just what city zoning calls for. And Recology only decided to sell the site after neighbors had rejected an earlier 2018 plan to build about 1,000 units of housing there.

At a pre-application meeting at the site on June 27, 2019, a packed room of Dogpatch and Potrero Hill residents lambasted the idea of ​​building housing on the site. One called it a “a land grab and giveaway to developers.” Another resident said San Francisco suffered from a “PDR crisis” — PDR stands for production, distribution and repair — and that the property should remain zoned for industrial uses. One attendee called it “a bad project,” while another argued that “housing is not needed in the neighborhood.”

If the vocal opposition was intended to give Recology cold feet, it worked. Recology first cut the number of proposed units in half. Then, facing an uphill approval process that was likely to drag on three or four years, not including delays from environmental lawsuits common in San Francisco, the rubbish company gave up and sold the six-acre site to Amazon.

“We received an offer and determined it was in Recology’s interest to accept it,” said Eric Potashner, the Vice President & Senior Director of Strategic Affairs at Recology.

While the housing plan would have required a series of zoning changes and conditional use authorizations, Amazon’s proposed 57-foot high warehouse is consistent with the Eastern Neighborhoods land use plan adopted in December of 2008 after a decade of debate. The site is part of a block of parcels roughly bounded by 7th Street, Division Street, Potrero Avenue and 16th Street, that were zoned for industrial uses.

Ken Rich, who was project manager at the Planning Department for the Eastern Neighborhoods rezoning, said the city tried to strike a balance between protecting industrial jobs and creating room for new housing. The plan has generated thousands of new housing units in Dogpatch and Potrero Hill. It has also prompted property owners at sites like 1 DeHaro, 100 Hooper and 150 Hooper to build PDR spaces for advanced manufacturing.

The Eastern Neighborhood Plans goal of protecting light industrial jobs on a swath of land that would otherwise have been gobbled up by tech office and housing developers has done what it was intended to do, according to Anne Taupier, director of development at the Mayor’s Office of Economic and workforce development.

“A clear set of rules to play by were established and it really hasn’t changed since then,” said Taupier. “We think it has worked and is continuing to work.”

The opposition to Amazon’s 7th Street plan is motivated not just by land use issues but by the company’s track record of crushing unionization efforts and reputation for grueling work conditions, according to JR Eppler, a board member with Potrero Boosters.

Eppler said that neighbors around 888 Minnesota St. have had success over the last year working with Amazon on issues like traffic, parking and security. Friends of Jackson Park is in talks with Amazon about the company possibly contributing funding to badly needed improvements. But the labor issues are harder to negotiate, he said.

In a recent SF Standard article two San Francisco Board of Supervisor members, Aaron Peskin and Shamann Walton, suggested that the city had been overly receptive to Amazon’s project and less than upfront with residents and other stakeholders about the project.

Taupier said Amazon is at the very beginning of its approval process and there would be ample time for residents and elected officials to shape the project.

“We are going to have conversations with Amazon about supporting our local small businesses, including our brick and mortar retail businesses,” said Taupier. “We will make sure they understand that San Francisco has expectations that if you are going to do business here you are going to be part of the community.”

In the meantime the empty rectangular lot feels like an island in a neighborhood that has moved on. To the north is the condo building at 888 7th St., which houses many senior Chinese immigrants. To the south on Hooper Street is headquarters for Adobe and a new SFMade building that houses a roster of manufacturing businesses including robotics groups, a distillery and a fabricator of everything from drapes to bags to hydrogen tanks for the automobile and industrial markets.

Scott Mason, a San Francisco commercial real estate broker who specializes in industrial properties, said Amazon is among a select group of well-funded users who qualify for PDR sites but have far deeper pockets than the typical family run auto body or plumbing supply company. He said mom and pop PDR companies needed to make a city like San Francisco function can not compete in a market dominated by Amazon.

“Your every day smaller company in San Francisco is having a tough time,” he said. “The venture-backed tech-driven company can pay more per square foot because they are not working off a regular balance sheet.”

Stephen Maduli-Williams, Amazon’s manager of economic development policy, said construction at the old Recolgy site would not start for 18 to 24 months. He said there would be retail at the site and Amazon would work with local residents and businesses to determine what sort of goods might be sold. He said the company is looking into how Amazon could support Jackson Park.

“We intend to use this time to listen to and engage all of our neighbors and stakeholders, with the goal of reaching a shared vision not only for the project, but to also create long lasting partnerships” he said.

For Dogpatch and Potrero residents there is an increasing sense that Amazon “has the neighborhoods surrounded,” said Eppler. Roscoe said he is concerned that some neighborhood groups will successfully squeeze Amazon to fund various needs, leaving residents to live with the trucks with the blue smiles coming and going.

“Nobody speaks for our building,” said Roscoe. “We don’t want it. Nobody I’ve talked to is like, ‘Oh yes, good idea.’ The others in the coalition are going for community benefits — but what community benefits could they give us? Free gas masks? Lifetime cancer screening? The benefit we need is to not be subjected to traffic and pollution.”

JK Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen

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OAKLAND (KPIX) — It was an emotional night for many students in the Oakland Unified School District Monday as they faced the possibility of losing their schools. Hundreds of community members showed up for the school board meeting to oppose the campus closures and consolidations proposed for the next two school years.

In 2006, Oakland embraced a small-school model to better serve impoverished neighborhoods. But there are those on the school board who think that was a financial mistake and they’re looking to change it. And they’re not wasting any time doing it.

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The proposed closure list was released to the public on Sunday. Six schools — Brookfield, Carl Munck, Prescott, Grass Valley, Parker, Community Day School — are recommended for closure at the end of this academic year. Two other schools — Horace Mann Elementary and Korematsu Discovery Academy — would close after next year, with their students then being reassigned to other schools.

Additionally, three schools would merge onto other campuses after this school year with Manzanita Community School moving to join Fruitvale Elementary the following year. The community just found out about the possible closure last Friday and it has organized quickly to try to save this school.

The Manzanita Community School held a Monday night viewing party, as parents, teachers and students united to fight the possible school closure. On Zoom, roughly 1600 people raised their hand for a chance to speak during the board meeting.

“Teachers have really helped me to get my children to the right path of education,” said Manzanita parent Tania Chi.

“You’re looking for family involvement but your also looking for that personal touch, said Pablo Pitcher Deproto. “When you have a smaller school, you just have more of an ability to reach those students.”

OUSD says it has too many small schools which makes it difficult to upkeep facilities and drives down salaries for teachers.

“Part of the narrative is we can’t give the teachers raises unless we close schools is incredibly offensive to pit us and our salaries against our school communities,” says Carrie Anderson, a teacher at Manzanita Community School.

Chi thinks the closure would have a huge impact on the largely low-income families at the school.

“I think parents would have to get up and move,” she said. “They would have to make a lot of schedule re-arranging throughout their day, and we don’t have a lot of help throughout the day.”

Oakland Unified officials said they are seeking community engagement by holding the special meeting Monday night. However, that meeting comes just one day after the list was released.

“How are we going to engage?” said Regina Morones, a Manzanita staff employee since 2006 when the school was founded. “How are we going to say anything? How are we going to show up at the board meeting if it’s on Zoom? So, to me, it’s all a strategy to make sure there’s as little push back as possible.”

Board President Gary Yee said OUSD has too many small, under-enrolled schools and it’s a financial burden preventing the district from providing adequate service to the community. He said larger, more regional schools would save money that could be put toward higher teacher salaries and a more effective operation.

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Though the district is not currently in a financial crisis, Yee said there’s no use waiting for things to get worse.

When he was asked if it was reasonable to take a vote only eight days after the closure list was released to the public, Yee replied, “Ummm…I understand the anger and the worries and the concern. I believe the process is one that is comprehensive and sufficiently detailed for us to consider.”

As for holding the public meeting the day after the list was revealed, Yee added he didn’t expect that anyone’s minds would be changed anyway.

“It’s super hard for people to consider something other than what they’re familiar with,” he said.

District 5 Director Mike Hutchinson alerted the community about the 6 schools on the closure list.

“We have no financial crisis,” sats Hutchinson. “We have a mismanagement crisis.”

Hutchinson is outraged that some of his fellow school board members are trying to push through school closures, especially during a pandemic.

Hutchinson adds, “There’s been no engagement, no process, they gave a ten day timeline to close schools permanently. The biggest issue is we don’t have an emergency going on right now that says we have to make these decisions in the next few days.”

But what the community gets from Manzanita seems pretty important. The school keeps a storeroom stocked with food, clothing and school supplies for families that can’t afford them. But they also have everyday staples like toilet paper and toothbrushes.

Afterschool program director Angela Phung said that could change if they had to move to a regional school.

“They wouldn’t be able to get what they need for their families,” she said.

OUSD’s mission statement says it strives to be a “full-service community district.” Parents with children at the schools being impacted by the proposal are left wondering how far they will have to travel to access it.

Board members say they plan to vote on the proposal eight days later at another special meeting scheduled for February 8th.

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Andrea Nakano contributed to this report.

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