A worker with the city's Department of Public Works power washes a portion of the Occupy SF campsite in coordination with the campers on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011, in San Francisco. Protesters scrambled to clean up their camp after Mayor Ed Lee warned in ameeting Wednesday that police would move in if sanitation problems continued and the camp spread into other areas. Protesters said the city gave them a 4 p.m. deadline to cut the number of tents down to 100, from 200, and remove trash and other health hazardsThe Occupy SF encampment is holding on by a thread. City officials, including Mayor Ed Lee, would love to have it gone. And it will happen, eventually.
Thursday was the second time that everyone - the media, protesters and Occupy SF campers - were sure the cops would march in and raid the tent city at Justin Herman Plaza.
For the second time nothing happened. And that's a good thing. After getting ultimatums from Lee on Wednesday about conditions at the camp and being declared a public health nuisance Thursday, the protesters surprised everyone by doing a major cleanup.
It didn't exactly turn into a KOA campground, but it was much improved. Large structures were removed, aisles between tents were open, and not only were the bocce ball courts cleared, some of the campers were playing bocce. Raiding the tents after that effort would have been in bad faith.
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