Who Are You With? – More on the fire down the street
Ok… sorry I meant to post this blog umm… however many nights ago but things got a bit hectic with the whole hurricane thing and my one coworker’s party.
So here’s the post from Friday night… being posted… errr… tonight, Monday night. Close enough right? Sorta? Hmm… ok… well I apologize for the lack of keeping with my 1 a day post… it’s hard to keep up with sometimes! Life gets crazy and all. Ok So this is the story about the chili’s fire thing.
Thursday night I went to bed at 1:30 in the am time. I wrote a blog and posted that at 12:22 and then I decided to stay up for another half hour or so and read and have a glass of wine…
Because SOMEONE… someone being me… thought it would be a fantastic idea to make coffee at 9pm. But then I forgot about brewing it and drank it at like 10… well started drinking it… and then at like 10:30 I forgot I needed to go to the ac-a-me because they close at 11… so I went to the store and then came back and drank the rest.
Coffee makes me all up and wakey and peppy
Wine makes me sleepy… and so does reading. Soooo I had a nice glass of wine and read some to counter the effects of the pep from the coffee.
It eventually worked.
Well I’m pretty sure I fell asleep sometime between 1 and 2… that would be around 1:30 “Eh, Em”… It might have been a few minutes later or earlier though… All I know is I finished my wine and book reading around 1 and then brushed my teeth and got into bed around 1:15… eventually I drifted off.
Ok soooo real quick… the blog I posted at 12:22 was about eating a spicy chili pepper that set my mouth on fire that my boss gave me from his garden. Then a few hours later the Chili’s is on fire… sooo I just was like whoa… that’s like psychic stuff! I mean ok not really… because I mean I could have blogged about swimming in a pool and then it rains and say oh wow I KNEW it was going to rain because I blogged about getting wet in a pool… but whatever… I thought it was still interesting… it was like uncanny crazy coincidental stuff… anyways back to the story…
I woke up at about 3 something because I heard a fire truck. I kinda went back to sleep but was woken up by a second siren. Then I heard a third with horns and everything. I got up and went to my window and looked out. There I saw the whole street blocked off by a police car. I started watching the commotion. I glanced at my clock… it was almost 3:30… sooo I got 2 hours of sleep so far. Awesome. I thought to myself tomorrow is going to suck.
I wasn’t sure what was going on… but then a 4th truck went by only it went around the corner, I thought that was strange. I looked over past where the police had blocked off the road and saw the sky was orange… WHOA… what the?! Then I saw more rescue vehicles drive by.
I debated going to back to sleep… but watched for another few minutes. I decided to go see what was up. As a last thought I grabbed my camera bag then left my building and walked over. There were a few others too standing around just talking in groups by the wawa… although most nights there are people just standing around outside wawa ANYWAYS talking… so it was almost a normal thing. When I got closer I could see that there was a big blaze just down the street! I asked the police officer if I could just stand where he was and take a few pictures. He kinda motioned me over to the firefighter closest to us. I went over and asked that guy. He said “oh yea you can walk right up there… just don’t get too close. They will tell you if you are in the way.” I was surprised that they just let someone walk right into all that commotion. I traversed the network of giant yellow hoses that littered the street. I started taking pictures and walking closer. About halfway up to the building I was stopped by a few guys that looked like members of a news source of some sort.
“Who are you with?”
Their shirts looked like they said accu something or something… I just assumed they were some kind of independent news source that maybe papers contract to get pictures / information for them? I mean it was almost 4 am… sooo I wasn’t all that coherent… also… there was a GIANT FIRE just down the street of my building… So part of me was wondering if I should even be out taking pictures and maybe I should be loading up my car in case this thing spreads so I can GTFO… that’s (Get The BLEEP Out) in internets lingo.
I looked at the “who are you with” guys and said “No one I live down the street”. I thought about telling them I worked for the daily planet (the newspaper from superman) just to mess with them… but then I thought this isn’t really a time to crack jokes. They handed me a card and said “can you email me your best ones when you get back home?” I said “Ok.” Although it struck me the way they said that… “some of your best ones.” That’s almost the way just a friend would say it. It was just weird.
I shoved the card in my pocket and they continued on. I just kinda walked around the outer parameter of the fire and continued taking pictures. Later when I was back home I looked at the card but it was confusing because they looked like a company that did was servpro does… like clean up flooded basements. I was confused as to why he would want pictures. Then I was suspicious. Sooo I decided not to email any pictures to him.
I was asked 2 other times who I was associated with as well. It felt weird… almost like they were thinking I was someone legit when I was just a guy with a camera. Maybe I look natural when I’m taking pictures? Like I belong to a member of the press? I don’t know… but I mean also at 4 something in the morning with a fire going on… I imagine people don’t really think about this stuff too much they just ask that kind of thing out of instinct or whatever. So I didn’t read too much into it. Then I thought maybe I shouldn’t be so up in there. Haha… I mean… here I am just a guy that lives down the street starting to get pretty close into where the action was. At one point when more and more people started gathering and were getting closer and closer all the fire trucks sounded their horns… it started with one truck and then others joined in… all the civilians like myself thought there was something about to blow and backed off pretty quickly.
Oh so one of the askers was someone else with a camera that made my camera look like crap. His camera was SOMETHING serious. I mean it was just big and tough looking and had this HUGE telephoto lens and lens hood… I was humbled by it. It was a cannon I think? But the body was extra tall looking… like he almost had to hold it with 2 hands… it HAD to have weighed double what mine did. I said again I wasn’t associated with anyone I just lived down the street and he quickly lost interest in talking to me. kthxbye to you too mr.
The other person was just a firefighter asking for copies of the pictures. I wrote down my info but I never heard anything.
I kinda hung out for nearly an hour taking over 330 pictures! Then I was just basically like well… I need to sleep. I went back to my place but had trouble falling asleep. It’s not every day that you see something like that. So I think my adrenaline was all pumping and what not.
Part of me was still worried it might get back out of control some how and hop buildings to mine! But there were a TON of fire trucks there and so I kinda just had to tell myself that’s not possible just go to sleep.
Here’s the article I found of it.
And the pictures were posted in the previous blog. So there ya have it! That’s the story of how it all went down in my town.
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