Residents allowed to return after evacuation

A tree that fell at the Sunnyvale public housing complex in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley neighborhood Tuesday morning damaged two cars and triggered a temporary evacuation of residents but did not permanently displace any residents.

A large tree fell around 8:45 a.m. at 145 Blythedale Ave., damaging some vehicles, according to fire department spokesman Jonathan Baxter.

Baxter said:

“The tree “just slightly swiped the building,” but did not damage it.”

The falling tree did cause a gas leak though when its roots pulled up a half-inch gas line, according to PG&E spokeswoman Hailey Wilson.

Residents of the building were temporarily evacuated, but PG&E crews were able to stop the leak around 15 minutes after their arrival, Wilson said.

Fire officials said residents had been cleared to return to their units by 9:25 a.m.

The location is in the same housing complex where another tree fell onto apartments Sunday, displacing seven people. That incident occurred around 7:30 a.m. at 166 Brookdale Ave. No injuries were reported.

Rose Marie Dennis, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Housing Authority, said those units have been red-tagged by the city’s Department of Building Inspection, meaning they are declared uninhabitable.

The residents have been given assistance by the American Red Cross and will be moved into other units within the same complex, Dennis said.

Crews are working to clear away the fallen tree this morning so that residents can be allowed to go back into the damaged units to retrieve their belongings.

Dennis said the Sunnydale complex has a number of large trees that were planted when it was built in the 1940s.