Here is an excerpt from the story in the San Mateo Daily Journal:
Jamie Chen was in her San Bruno home with her grandmother when a gas pipeline below the Crestmoor neighborhood exploded, annihilating houses, properties and lives just hundreds of feet away from the couch where she sat. Years removed from the disaster in 2010 that claimed the lives of eight people, injured 66 and destroyed 38 homes, Chen recalled how the tragedy transformed her perspective. "It really taught me the brevity of life," said Chen. As the 18-year-old senior at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco stands on the precipice of enrolling as a freshman in the University of California at Berkeley, Chen has been granted a chance to turn the disaster into an opportunity.