the big news, john swett unified school district is closed, all the campuses. this all began at about 1:30 yesterday afternoon here at the nustar energy storage facility, there was ethanol in those tanks. the blasts sent the top of one of the tanks hurling in the air and people said the ground shook violently, almost like an earthquake. then the inferno that caused a massive smoke cloud that the interstate was closed through the afternoon and evening commuting hours, for seven hours total, until it opened at 10:00 a last night. a shelter in place was ordered. and people were told to turn off their air conditioning systems to make sure they keep the smoke outside their homes. the fire chief and fire department announcing the shelter in places and travel restrictions lifted late last night. >> all of the shelter in place warnings have been lifted for an the communities of crockett,, rod rodeo, and the northern part of hercules. >> with an all clear, we ask that residents impacted to please open your doors and windows to air out buildings and home. you can resume

once again, john swett unified schools, all of them are closed today.m jensen, "today in the bay." >> there is much more coverage of the fire on our home page including video from skyranger. just head over to nbcbayarea.com, it is our top story. >>> a big day in the college chng scandal for a bay area mother. she'll find out if she'll avoid jail time or head to the same jail where felicity huffman is waking up this morning. kris sanchez joins us live from dublin with the latest. >> 5:00 was the first wake up call for felicity huffman here at the federal jail in dub lynn. she started her 14 day stint in prison yesterday here and is the first parent in the college cheating scandal incarcerate preponderance of the evidened. she's to spend 14 days in jail. also today bay area mother margery clapper is due for sentencing this afternoon. the government is asking for a punishment at the low end of the sentencing guideline plus a year of probation, a $20,000 fine and also restitution. clapper admitted to paying $15,000 to have her son's a.c.t. scores inflated.

talking about john swett high school closing, affecting 1400 students, the middle school, high school, elementary are all closed today. at the height of the fire yesterday afternoon, it was quite a scene out here. two explosions at new star energy at about 1:30 sent one of the tank's tops hurling in the air. and then the inferno that caused such a massive smoke cloud that the interstate was closed until about 10:00 last night. a shelter in place was ordered for crockett, rodeo and parts of hercules. people were told to turn on their air conditioning to keep the smokes out of their homes. making sure everything is safe at the schools and out of timing because the situation was so bad until late last night, john swett unified school district has closed all schools for today. live in crockett, thon jenson for today in the bay. >>> thousands of people were diverted to other freeways and it caused a domino effect. >> melissa tells us about the traffic nightmare for some drivers through 680. >> reporter: where are you going? >> vallejo. >> reporter: is it the worst you've been in? >> this i

all schools in the john swett school district are closed for the day. both directions of 80 are open to traffic in a shelter in place order was lifted last night. sara zendehnam is live in crockett when incident management team investigated through the night. >> reporter: that's right. good morning. on cummings skyway which is shut down between i-80 and san pablo avenue because of this incident. we know that cal osha will be out here on site investigating today. it's dark out here now so you can't see much but you can still smell the smoke in the air. like i said you can't see much now so let's take you to video and we will break down what we know happened here yesterday. this started tuesday afternoon. an explosion at nustar petroleum storage plant's selby terminal in crockett sent flames shooting into the air. thick black smoke cloud in nearby towns. two tanks containing ethanol and jet fuel exploded. those were part of the explosion that happened here last night. that sent the flames into the air. one tank had about 167,000 gallons of the chemical. t

all schools will be closed today in the john swett school district. as you just heard both directions of interstate both directions of interstate 80 are open after being closed during yesterday evening's commute. also a shelter in place order has been canceled. the situation is being closely watched for any signs of a possible flareup and air quality officials will be out there today and cal osha has begun an investigation. jana katsuyama has more on that explosion and how it affected neighbors and people trying to get home. >> reporter: the explosion at the nustar energy storage plant was caught on camera. the top of the storage tank toward off and tossed into the air with the force of the blast. the explosion at the selby terminal in crockett send pick , black smoke into the sky. concerned over bad air forced county, fire and health official to order people to shelter in place. in a statement the company said there are two impacted tanks which were holding very low volumes of ethanol, less than 1% of tank capacity. all personnel are safe and account

and it was a tense situation here at john swett high school earlier today. now just before 2:00, the superintendent tells me that he heard a boom and thought it was an earthquake. and that was about 2:00 this afternoon. now, the students here were told to shelter in place, and that situation lasted for about three hours. the school is now empty because around 5:30 the last wave of students started boarding buses to get home. this was a challenging situation because of all the road closures we've been talking about. the superintendent is calling this a systematic dismissal, but also says this is what they're trying to do. you can hear the community sirens going off just right now. but tonight the decision has not been made regarding school tomorrow for some 1,400 students. >> we don't know when the shelter and place will come to an end, and we need to make some determinations to inform families what to do in the morning. we're leaning towards closing schools. we want to make sure we are just thoughtful in making that decision. >> reporter: now, this is the sc

they are rodeo hills elementary, quirkiness middle school, john swett high and willow high. stay with us for continuing coverage of the nustar energy facility fire throughout the morning as investigators try to find a cause. we will update you throughout the day at ktvu.com. >>> the bay arll having hocks earthquakes hit yesterday. we've had three quakes in the past 48 hours. the latest quake was a magnitude 3.4 that hit last night around 7:15 pm centered in pleasant hills, near the epicenter of monday night's of 4.5 quake. earlier yesterday afternoon there was a 4.7 quake in san benito county centered 15 miles southeast of hollister. people in the small town of tres pinos really felt it. the epicenter was just 10 miles south of town. but it was felt across northern california. the owner of a hair salon said being so close to that epicenter made this deal different than others. >> one of the ladies was like i think we are having an earthquake and i was, like, away. i turned around and all the stuff was shaking on the walls and the water container was pushing back and forth. i

all four schools in the john swett school district closed today after that fire and explosion at the new star petroleum storage plant in crockett. fire was contained after seven hours. it started just before the 2:00 yesterday afternoon. interstate 80 is open again this morning. it was closed during yesterday evening's commute. cal/osha will be out there helping with the investigation to figure out how that fire started. no one was hurt but the contra costa county fire protection district says two storage tanks were destroyed. they contained 250,000 gallons of ethanol. two other tanks were damaged. shelter in place order for as many as 12,000 people has been canceled now. air quality advisories were issued but health officials say the air in communities are now safe to breathe and you can open your doors and windows again. >>> two east bay refineries are back to normal operations now. the shell refinery in martinez and the marathon facility in concord state monday's magnitude 4.5 earthquake set off flaring incidents. the company say they burnt off gases in their system for about 15 m

sent home students early because of poor air quality at hercules high school and many students at john swett high school in crockett called parents to complain about smoke. the superintendent said there were plans to deal with the power shut off but they did not anticipate poor air quality. >> the smoke that filled the area was not expected and we will look at the safety and security procedures with regards to smoke. >>> classes are held at all contra costa schools except the juvenile detention facility in clayton and canyon elementary near moraga and schools in alamo. >>> steve paulson is back and some things you are seeing you said have never happened? >>> three red flags in a weeks time. that hasn't happened and i saw that from the weather service in monterey and they can remember that ever happening. >>> it looks like the last one in the series but we can sure use it and it will kick in in the morning and the wind will pick up tonight with one more round. a little bit of fog and the humidity is up and that's good but for the fire conditions, there's not much of a breeze although it favor

hurricane as middle john swett high school rodeo hills elementary and willow high schools. by the way schools within the contra costa county district will not be close. this is john sweat unified schools can. highway shut down during rush hour because of that refinery fire interstate 80 was closed in both directions this afternoon and it is still closed from highway 4 hercules. >>all the way up to there's 7.80 freeway in vallejo that includes the car kingsbridge kron she was stuck in that traffic along with thousands of others leading up to those closures she joins us now near interstate 80 in pin all as a few exits before the diversion there taylor, how's looking right now. >>well things are looking a little bit better as you can see over me here we're starting to see some movement and this is on i 80 between richmond parkway in the aryan weigh in as you can see this looks good right now even though you might think that the cars are just trying to put you in perspective here earlier today to travel just a mile and have to get off this exit over here. it took me 35 minutes s

pine elementary had to deal with poor air quality and some had the added poor of no power like john swett high school. >> some had the ability -- they couldn't get out into fresh air. that's a double whammy for those schools. >> cal maritime, they will be closed until the end of the week. they still have hotspots on campus and waiting for the all clear from fire officials. kris reyes for abc 7 news. >>> kris, thanks. >>> in the north bay, people have had to evacuate for the second time in two years. >> here's a comparison of the kinkade versus the tubbs fire. you can see the tubbs fire burned a -- it destroyed more than 5,000 homes. wade freeman is live with the story of some people going through wildfires wayne, yet again. >> reporter: there are a lot of people like that. some people are going home. highway 101 going northbound this time yesterday. this highway was closed to traffic. now some of the people in western sonoma county have the all clear to go home and they are doing so. closer to the fire, however, it's going to take a while and it's been tough. this is what passes for activ

. >>> all four schools in the john swett unified school district are closed as a safety measure. investigators throughout the day will try to find the cost the fire we will have updates the day as well on ktvu.com. >>> 12 of the democratic candidates for president were on one stage in ohio. topics ranged from impeament to healthcare to whether to break up big tech companies such as facebook. >> the strategy for some of the candidates was to come out swinging. they went after president donald trump and a new target, senator elizabeth warren. >>> greatly is here with us in studio and every candidate trying to make the mark here. >> i think there is one thing we can agree on is that 12 candidates on stage is a lot of people. a lot of voices in every candidate fighting for a chance to make the points last night. senator ward dominating the category was speaking time due in part to the number of challenges from the others. >> 12 democratic candidates crowded together on the stage in ohio. the largest primary debate in history. the challenge for this dozen standing out in the 4th debat

school will take place so that affects kids at hurricane is middle school john swett high school but dave hills elementary and high school again school will take place tomorrow ken pam back to you thank you grant to firefighters in utah are apparently melting hearts across the country they help keep a scared little girl calm. >>after she was involved in a car crash. >>lawrence time brecker tells us the stories about how they distracted her. >>greenland is a little ball of energy. a spunky 2 year-old who right is on a bit of a nail painting spree. >>to their pain was no before yes millet friday. >>since friday. when breeland was looking forward to going to cram us to pay nails. but on the way there. a woman rear ended mom, jocelyn and berlin in clearfield hitting their van 3 times stossel says before the woman stopped breeland screaming crying and i'm freaking out because i'm pregnant and because she's in the car. >>in those frantic moments i walked that hughes. >>screaming really really loud. >>a quick thinking firefighter saw her clinching bottles of nail polish. >>something common

after the shelter in place was lifted yesterday, students at hurricane as middle school john swett high i rodeo hills elementary school and high we'll all have school today stay with khan for for breaking news, if you have our mobile app that's the quickest and best way to get it directly to you if you're on the go like yesterday 2 o'clock to 10 we sent out. the breaking news alert about the fire. so that you know right away what you're in for. >>tomorrow will mark 30 years since the loma prieta earthquake and the bay area's we've seen in the last couple of days has seen the ground shake a lot yeah, especially over pleasant hill that's working for sarah stinson is live this morning. hi sarah. >>yeah, pleasant hill was hit with a nother earthquake. this time it was a 3.4 magnitude earthquake. a new man assaulted or may have felt sort of like ad aftershock but take a look at this map. it is a shake map that shows the intensity of the earthquake. and it makes it clear this is from usgs you can see on the map. people all the way in santa rosa may have felt good but it hit right here, i'm st