2008 in review: Top 10 stories in the Bay Area

It'll start in two days. The calendar pages will flutter from the windows and the bad-mouthing will commence in earnest.

1. Economic collapse

The delicately balanced house of cards finally toppled over. Suddenly, upstanding borrowers were upside down and half the Central Valley seemed to have a "foreclosed" sign in the front yard. Congress pungled up $700 billion for a bailout and now that seems to be down the rathole, too, along with the average Joe's retirement stash. Brother, everyone seems to be singing, can you spare a dime?

2. Same-sex marriage

Who would have imagined that the two most controversial words in California would turn out to be "I do"? A long, loud and expensive campaign ended with the narrow passage in November of Proposition 8, writing a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution after the California Supreme Court overturned the state's previous ban in May. Months before the election, polls showed the proposition seemed doomed, but a well-funded coalition of conservatives, Catholics, Mormons and others came together to put an end, for now, to the wedding ceremonies seen around the world. Meanwhile, supporters of the marriages have been alternately protesting in the streets and kicking themselves for not working harder before election day.

3. Obama gets out the vote

The election campaign that seemed to last forever finally ended, and the guy who once joked that he did not look like the other people on the money came out on top, winning more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history. Enthusiasm for Barack Obama's historic run for president resulted in the highest percentage of California voters casting ballots in 32 years. Usually a campaign slogan means hardly anything, but not in 2008. In three weeks, when for the first time an African American takes the oath of office on Inauguration Day, there will no mistaking the meaning of the word "change."

4. Greenhouse gas emissions

California approved the nation's most sweeping plan to reduce global warming by curbing emissions, a move that state regulators hail as a nationwide model for President-elect Obama. The changes are designed to allow the state to reach its legally mandated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a reduction of about 30 percent. They are expected to be put into effect over the next 12 years.

5. Record gas prices

2008 proved the price of gasoline is more volatile than gasoline. Over the summer, the stuff cost $4.50 per gallon. A lot of people discovered they could get by just fine by driving less, walking more, hopping on a bus or pedaling a bike. Then the economy tanked and now the same gallon costs $1.50. Ridership on public transit has slipped a bit, but it's not clear if lower fuel prices or the rising unemployment rate is to blame.

6. Dry conditions fuel fires

For a while this summer and fall, no part of the state seemed untouched by fire. In November, 1,000 homes were destroyed in a series of devastating blazes in Southern California. Another fire torched 100 homes near Santa Barbara. In October, half of Angel Island went up in smoke. At the beginning of the summer, two dozen homes were lost to a fire in Big Sur, and a huge fire in Butte County barely missed the town of Paradise after forcing 10,000 residents to flee their homes. All told, 1,700 blazes blackened 829,000 acres of California during this year's fire season, keeping firefighters busy. A state of emergency seemed the state's perpetual state.

7. Water rationing

Gasoline and money weren't the only things running out. Two straight years of drought means that California may face water rationing next summer. The causes are complex, but they come down to more people, less rain and fewer smelt - an endangered species protected by strict rules at delta pumping stations. Fish gotta swim.

8. S.F. shields immigrant criminals

After a Chronicle story described how San Francisco was harboring rather than deporting violent youths, the city shifted gears and changed its decades-old policy of offering sanctuary to undocumented juvenile lawbreakers. The policy, which began in the 1980s as a means of protecting political opponents of regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, wound up protecting alleged gang killers in the Mission District. Some offenders had been getting free flights to their home countries, with San Francisco taxpayers paying the tab.

9. Golden Gate Bridge's anti-suicide net

Extra patrols have been dispatched, pleading signs have been erected and crisis hotlines have been installed. Still, more than 1,000 despondent souls have leaped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge. In October, after hearing years of testimony from psychiatrists, social workers and bereaved relatives, bridge directors voted to install a giant $45 million metal net beneath the bridge to catch the leapers. The actual net could be years away while directors try to figure out how to design it and how to pay for it.

10. Dellums' job performance

In Oakland, residents are grumbling more and more fervently about the job performance of freshman Mayor Ron Dellums, the former 13-term U.S. congressman and icon of the left. Critics say his detached manner and ineffectual decision-making - combined with a widely reported spate of strong-arm restaurant robberies and other city problems - have left voters wondering what's going on at City Hall.