Morning Commotion

I was just beginning to drift back into dream world when my phone rang. Steve had just kissed me goodbye for the day and left for work a few minutes ago. I felt my stomach jump into throat. It’s not unusual for him to call because he forgot something, but not this early in the morning.

“Hello?”

“Hey. If you want something to write about on your blog today, look out the window.”

“OK…” I climbed out of bed unwillingly and wobbled to the window. I pulled about part the blinds to peek through.

“What the ef?”

“Yeah. An electrical box caught on fire at the end of the coldesac. I couldn’t even get out of the driveway at first.”

I fumbled around and found something to throw on to go join my neighbors in the jaw dropping contest. Everyone was outside with their dogs, staring and gossiping. I was the only one obnoxious enough to bring a camera.

Once I got outside, two more fire trucks joined the entourage. I counted a total of five fire trucks (2 of those being ladder trucks), three ambulances and two police cars. Since I couldn’t see any fire or smell any smoke, I felt that was a little bit much for  the situation. If this were back in rural Virginia, I would say they were all bored and wanted something to do. However, here in the big city, emergency personal gets dispatched all day and nigh long (it’s constant in the background noise), so I’m sure they had good reason to bring backup. Electrical boxes can get out of hand.

While I was standing in my driveway, two firefighters with axes walked past me without saying a word and stomped up to my house. Ugh, yoohoo! Whatcha doin’? They felt the meter and the wall surrounding it to see if it was hot. I guess it wasn’t hot because they didn’t start hacking away at the side of my house. Wouldn’t that have been something? Two firefighters casually doing their protocol expecting nothing, resident watching from a few feet away, and then all of sudden they start slicing into my house and flames going shooting out. Thankfully that didn’t happen! After they checked my house, they told me everything was fine, but we might have the power and phone go in and out until everything with the electrical box is fixed.

I should have made this clear in the beginning. No one was harmed by the fire. Everyone is safe and sound. A few houses did fill with smoke due to their proximity to the fire, but all is well. We were told that it was safe to return to our homes (and please get out of the way and put down the camera – is what they were probably thinking) and that if anything else came up they would be back to handle the situation.

PS. Please excuse the quality of pictures, I didn’t want to leave the driveway. I wasn’t going to be that obnoxious with the picture taking. You have to have a REAL camera to be that obnoxious, and since it is a REAL camera no one thinks your obnoxious, they think you are a photographer, reporter, artist etc. Also the weather and lighting was not picture friendly. It was just after sunrise and it was cloudy and rainy. My camera doesn’t’ like cloudy weather with iffy lighting. Then you add in the flashing lights from all of the emergency vehicles. My poor camera couldn’t take it. A REAL camera would have been able to overcome many of those obstacles. Santa can you hear me? I said REAL camera.

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