Around 3:43pm today, the Coast Guard received a call about a distressed swimmer who was seen on the rocks near the Cliff House.

CBS reports that the Coast Guard responded with a helicopter and a 47-foot motor lifeboat. The park service also responded with swimmers.

Two rescue swimmers were eventually able to reach the young man with their long boards, and bring him back to shore around 4:40pm. He was transported to a hospital for examination, but was reported to not have any life-threatening injuries.

Sarah B.

Susan Francis and her husband had just finished their Valentine’s dinner around 9:30pm on Tuesday night when they heard tires screeching followed by a loud crash outside their home.

The cause? A Dodge had slammed into the corner of their Balboa Street house.

“My husband right away said ‘call 911′ so I did that and then when I came out here other people were already out here pulling the man out of the car,” Francis told ABC 7 News.

Remarkably, Francis says they didn’t feel the home shake when the car crashed into it. The driver was described as dazed and disoriented when he was taken from the vehicle. He was later taken to a hospital.

The impact occurred near the home’s electrical box so PG&E was quickly on scene to turn off the power and gas for the night.

43rd and Balboa is known by neighbors for being a tricky intersection. A few months ago, a car crashed into a laundromat just across the street from the Francis’ house. It’s still boarded up from the incident.

UPDATE: CBS5 reports that the driver, Jovanni Ramirez, 23 was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Sarah B.

Late last week, the Bay Citizen ran a story on the percent of the Bay Area population that is living in poverty, based on new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The government defines a family as living in poverty if their annual household income income is less than $22,113.

The article includes a map with shaded areas indicating poverty level. The image below shows the neighborhood, which features several areas designated as having 8% to 20% of its residents living in poverty.

One small section of the neighborhood – from Geary to Lake Street, and 19th Avenue to Park Presidio – is shaded red, indicating that 20% to 34% of the population there is living in poverty. Of the 3,666 that live there, 740 are in poverty (20.2%). It also states 213 are in extreme poverty, though it’s unclear if the 213 are part of the 740, or in addition to.

It’s interesting that this one pocket of the neighborhood exhibits such a high level. In fact it’s the only area at that level of poverty in the western end of San Francisco. The next closest “20% – 34%” area is in the Fillmore.

You wouldn’t know it walking around that neighborhood, filled with quaint, well kept single-family homes on Lake Street and well-maintained apartment buildings on every block. A brief look at Zillow indicates homes are selling in that grid beginning at $699k up to $1.5M. There’s even a flat that rents for $5,400 a month.

Which all gets back to the Bay Citizen’s original story angle, which is that rich and poor are living side by side in San Francisco. Why should the Richmond District be any different?

Nevertheless, I’m surprised that this “impoverished” section is also in one of the most sought after areas for real estate in the neighborhood.

So did something go awry with the data that was collected? What do you think? Real data or a data aberration?

Sarah B.

A curious pooch looks into the Internet Archive on Clement near Funston. Photo by mike dillon

One happy hawk: Remember the hawk who had a nail shot through his beak? He was released back into the wild a couple weeks ago and was seen this week in Golden Gate Park’s Botanical Garden, doing quite well.

Richmond resident does good: Richmond District resident Anwar Ghanem was honored at City Hall for helping rescue a man from a burning car. “Ghanem’s 3-year-old daughter, Jasmine, watched her dad receive his awards. She shrugged when asked if her dad’s a hero, but Ghanem seemed to acknowledge that he is. “I feel kind of like a hero. It feels good,” he said.”

Muppet mania hits Argonne School: Mention Argonne School at the Balboa Theater this Sunday and save on your ticket to see the new Muppets movie. Mention Argonne during either of the afternoon showings (2:20pm or 4:35pm) and you will receive a special ticket price of $6 per person plus a free goodie bag.

Surf’s still up: Check out this nice set of pics in Surfing Magazine from the 2011 Rip Curl Pro Search contest that was held at Ocean Beach:

Mom & Pop school supply store shuts down: The Educational Exchange store on Balboa, one of the Bay Area’s last family-owned teacher supply stores, is closing this Wednesday.

SFAppeal reported today that the SFFD were called to a fire around 8am on Sunday morning at an apartment building at 307 3rd Avenue on the corner of Clement.

The two occupants of the unit made their way to safety, and residents of the four other units in the building were also evacuated. The residents of the burned unit suffered from smoke inhalation.

The fire, which was pouring out of a third story window when SFFD arrived, appeared to be accidental.

Twitter user pixplz (Justin Beck) shot the photo above after the fire department brought the blaze under control.

Beck also tweeted that Giorgio’s pizzeria, located just across the street, lent a helping hand: “Someone w/ Giorgio’s Pizzeria on Clement just gave some cheese slices to displaced residents”.

Sarah B.

Photo by Mike Koozmin | The Examiner

Photo by Mike Koozmin | The Examiner

The entryway to 636 Funston. Photo by SFCitizen

Helicopters hovered over the central Richmond District this morning after an officer-involved shooting took place on Funston Avenue between Balboa and Cabrillo.

The SFFD was called to the residence at 636 Funston Avenue around 7:15am this morning. When they arrived, they found an elderly man on the front stairs, bleeding profusely from stab wounds on his forearm and hands.

SFPD were then called to the scene. When they arrived, they entered the home where they found an elderly woman who had also suffered life-threatening stab wounds to her upper body.

As police attempted to move the female victim, they were confronted by a knife-wielding man who according to SFPD spokesperson Lt. Troy Dangerfield, “was holding a knife in each hand above his head, advancing towards them.”

Police tried to subdue the man with a non-lethal bean bag projectile, but it did not slow him down. Officers then shot the man. “It is clear that this guy had serious intent to hurt the people inside the house as well as the officers” Dangerfield said.

Both victims and the suspect were transported by ambulance to San Francisco General. The Chronicle reports that the suspect, 44 years old, died at San Francisco General at 9:30am. The elderly female victim also died.

The two elderly victims were parents of the suspect. Police later discovered a second woman in the house, the suspect’s sister, who was uninjured and hid during the incident in a locked bedroom.

The 600 block of Funston was closed off to traffic during the investigation.

Sarah B.

More reports from:
SFAppeal
SFExaminer
KTVU

The 600 block of Funston

PG&E crew works to restore power at Clement and 2nd Avenue, late Thursday night. Photo by RyanAmazing

It looks like the inner Richmond is not out of the woods yet with regard to power outages. Tonight I received reports from readers of another outage on the early blocks of Clement Street.

One reader, Twitter user kayincateyes, said their power was out from 10:15pm until 10:30pm at Arguello and Clement. “Three outages in two weeks, I’m pissed. Power went out in middle of work all three times “.

Another reader, Ryan, reported it was out at 2nd and Clement from 10:15 until about 11:10pm. “I got to hear everyone in The Plough and the Stars cheer,” he wrote.

Reader Patrick posted on Facebook that the outage appeared to be on Clement Street “out until at least 8th or 9th ave.”

The backup generator and PG&E trucks are still parked up at 12th and Clement, due to last night’s outage. I stopped off to talk to the technician in the truck just a few minutes ago. He said last night’s and tonight’s outages were possibly related, but they weren’t sure yet. He was on duty to “light up” the 12th and Clement generator again while they did repairs from last night’s outage.

He said if the outages continue near Clement and 2nd Avenue / Arguello, worst case is that it could be a bad cable which they’d need to replace. When I asked how long that takes he said it could be a day, but that PG&E would line up another generator for that part of the neighborhood.

I also contacted the PG&E outage line (1-800-468-4743), but they did not have any further information. Were you affected by Thursday night’s outage? Leave a comment to let us know.

Sarah B.

The backup generator at 12th Avenue and Clement

Around 4:30pm on Wednesday afternoon, roughly 1,600 PG&E customers lost power in the inner Richmond. This was the second outage in a week, with the last one occurring on June 1 in the late evening.

Initially, PG&E predicted that power would be restored around 7:15pm, but they were able to get the lights back on for most customers by 6pm.

While most residents weren’t home to experience it, many of the merchants on Clement from Arguello to 6th Avenue tried their best to operate in the dark.

Green Apple Books was readying the store for a special event with Google on eBooks, and tweeted “15 minutes before our eBook petting zoo the power goes put? Damn you, Amazon! How do you do it?” Even after the power came back on at 6pm, Green Apple was still experiencing intermittent outages, later tweeting “Come learn how to buy an ebook by the light of your ipad so you can read post-apocalypse! (Seriously, this is what’s happening.)”

In an extremely rare event, Giorgio’s Pizza was closed last night when I strolled by at 8:30pm. Their power was back on but they had probably made the decision to close when the outage went too long.

There was also a minor traffic snarl thanks to the outage when the stoplights went out at the intersection of Park Presidio and Clement. When I drove by at 7pm, SFPD was still directing traffic. One RichmondSFBlog reader, Mark, reported that the lights were still down as of 10:40pm.

And this morning, I noticed a few PG&E trucks and a backup generator on the corner of 12th and Clement, probably powering the intersection at Park Presidio.

No word yet on what caused the outage or if it was related to the one on June 1, which PG&E attributed to “an underground equipment failure”. That outage affected roughly twice the number of homes as ysterday’s.

Did you experience the power outage? Leave a comment to let us know.

Sarah B.