Why my Husband Rocks
Meant to blog about this yesterday....
So, mr_niggle's new office-that-he-goes-to-sometimes is on the 25th floor of the building attached to/on top of Grand Central Station. He and some guys were in a meeting there Wednesday when the giant eruption happened.
At first they thought it was a return of the morning's thunderstorm, but no... the thunder didn't stop. Then they saw people outside running in a blind panic. Everyone got up to leave. Most people left their computers/jackets'/whatever. Christopher grabbed his laptop (in front of him) and slipped it into his briefcase (beside him). Like everyone else, he made for the elevator...
... but one woman came running down the hall, frantic, and wouldn't fit. So Christopher gave her his spot in the elevator. He figured he was stuck with the stairs, but another elevator arrived just then and he got in alone.
After that, everyone was running. Christopher moved rapidly, but not, I think, in a panic. He said people were still running ten blocks later. Nobody could get cell phone calls through for a while as all the lines were jammed.
At that point he and another guy saw firetrucks trying to head in towards where they were running from, but cars kept trying to jump in the fire lane to block traffic, so he and this other (anonymous, random) guy started directing traffic and blocking the fire lanes to box out the other cars and let the firetrucks in.
So that's Christopher in a nutshell. Never panics. Gets the job done.
He did eventually get calls through to us. Which was the first I'd heard of what happened; we turned on the news and I explained to the girls that Daddy was safe but that there was this big explosion... I think this impressed Gwen as Very Worrying. Probably because she could sense how worried I was and, hey, if it made mommy interrupt watching Little Bear, it had to be Bad.
Eventually he walked up to 96th Street where my father met him and drove him home to his very grateful wife and children.
So, mr_niggle's new office-that-he-goes-to-sometimes is on the 25th floor of the building attached to/on top of Grand Central Station. He and some guys were in a meeting there Wednesday when the giant eruption happened.
At first they thought it was a return of the morning's thunderstorm, but no... the thunder didn't stop. Then they saw people outside running in a blind panic. Everyone got up to leave. Most people left their computers/jackets'/whatever. Christopher grabbed his laptop (in front of him) and slipped it into his briefcase (beside him). Like everyone else, he made for the elevator...
... but one woman came running down the hall, frantic, and wouldn't fit. So Christopher gave her his spot in the elevator. He figured he was stuck with the stairs, but another elevator arrived just then and he got in alone.
After that, everyone was running. Christopher moved rapidly, but not, I think, in a panic. He said people were still running ten blocks later. Nobody could get cell phone calls through for a while as all the lines were jammed.
At that point he and another guy saw firetrucks trying to head in towards where they were running from, but cars kept trying to jump in the fire lane to block traffic, so he and this other (anonymous, random) guy started directing traffic and blocking the fire lanes to box out the other cars and let the firetrucks in.
So that's Christopher in a nutshell. Never panics. Gets the job done.
He did eventually get calls through to us. Which was the first I'd heard of what happened; we turned on the news and I explained to the girls that Daddy was safe but that there was this big explosion... I think this impressed Gwen as Very Worrying. Probably because she could sense how worried I was and, hey, if it made mommy interrupt watching Little Bear, it had to be Bad.
Eventually he walked up to 96th Street where my father met him and drove him home to his very grateful wife and children.