Fire!

I have to remember to start bringing my camera to work.  This morning, I missed the chance to take pictures of a three-alarm fire with all of its black smoke and flames and fire trucks, not to mention the hundreds of people gathered on sidewalks everywhere to watch.  It was an interesting way to start the morning.  At first, I thought the sirens might be a side effect of the jet lag, but when people started gathering around the windows, I quit installing my new laptop port to watch for myself.  At first, we thought it might be a car fire  but then the smoke grew heavy and before long flames started shooting out of the top of a building, which turned out to be a residential hotel.

It took the fire crews around an hour to contain the flames, another hour of watching and investigating, and by mid-morning the Red Cross was set up in the parking lot across the street.  Now the news is reporting that one person died and at least seven are missing, though those seven might not have been in the hotel at the time. 

Speaking of fire, the photo at the right shows the aftermath of a blaze that destroyed the "Love Shack" (bugmenot login: dawgathens2 password: theevent), the house that inspired the B-52's song and in which the band wrote the song "Rock Lobster."  I guess it's fitting that the tin roof, though of course rusted, appears to be the only thing that survived the fire.

Comments

[Geoff]

I dropped Sandra off at work today and actually got caught up in this just as it was happening. Dozens of emergency vehicles ahead of me, several more crawling up my back on 5th Ave. Lots of smoke and confusion. Very odd...

[Elisabeth]

The cause of the fire? A discarded cigarette. Get ready for the Nazis, Jeff.

[Jeff]

I thought the exact same thing, Elisabeth. Why does it always have to be about the smokers?