What a night....
So, friday night, I'm working as normal. But man, it was not a normal work night.
It started off innocent enough. Busier than usual, had a couple huge money orders, but whatever. Then around 4 or so some police cars pulled up to a house across the street, and were there for a while, and at some point we saw them walking out with what looked like evidence bags. We were going to ask one of the cops that always come in what was up over there later, but we sorta forgot because...
At 9:35 someone on a pump came inside and told me "Dude, there's a fire over there." This isn't that uncommon, I've gone outside after someone tells me this and seen smoke in the air from a fire but it's too far away to actually tell anything about it and it's almost never serious.
This time, I walk outside, and the first thing I see is the entranceway to the apartment building across the other street (we are on a corner) completely engulfed in flames. I stood there for a few seconds with my mouth open, then slowly looked inside and when my co-worker saw me he ran outside, which fortunately snapped me out of it. We ran inside and I grabbed all the fire extinguishers so he could run across the street to help while I called the fire department and started grabbing anything I thought might be useful (first aid kits, etc).
The next couple hours or so are kind of a blur. I remember one guy jumping out of a third floor window to get away. I remember passing out water bottles and donuts to people. I remember the people who live over there, almost all of them regulars, coming into the store in tatters just to get away from it (and in most cases grabbing a pack of smokes), a lot of them shaking from shock.
A few hours later we were just finishing up closing the store and my head was just about cleared. I talked to an arson investigator afterwards before I went home. Apparently someone had thrown a moltov cocktail down the entranceway. But there were no serious injuries, which was great to hear, and most of the damage was just smoke. They said that the speed in which the two of us responded saved a lot of damage and probably some very serious injuries.
A couple random highs and lows to close out on. The fact that nobody around the store wanted to help (one woman actually got angry at me for "ignoring her" while we were running out with extinguishers at first) was sad. Nobody would grab the extra extinguisher we had (the store has three) until we got to the apartments. Almost everyone was perfectly happy just watching the carnage. Also, come on people. There are five fire trucks across the street. Smoke is still coming out of the building. Do not walk into the store and ask me if there was a fire.
On a higher note though, someone walked in at that point and said, with a perfectly straight face: "This is like the worst time ever to ask this...but do you guys sell firewood?"
It started off innocent enough. Busier than usual, had a couple huge money orders, but whatever. Then around 4 or so some police cars pulled up to a house across the street, and were there for a while, and at some point we saw them walking out with what looked like evidence bags. We were going to ask one of the cops that always come in what was up over there later, but we sorta forgot because...
At 9:35 someone on a pump came inside and told me "Dude, there's a fire over there." This isn't that uncommon, I've gone outside after someone tells me this and seen smoke in the air from a fire but it's too far away to actually tell anything about it and it's almost never serious.
This time, I walk outside, and the first thing I see is the entranceway to the apartment building across the other street (we are on a corner) completely engulfed in flames. I stood there for a few seconds with my mouth open, then slowly looked inside and when my co-worker saw me he ran outside, which fortunately snapped me out of it. We ran inside and I grabbed all the fire extinguishers so he could run across the street to help while I called the fire department and started grabbing anything I thought might be useful (first aid kits, etc).
The next couple hours or so are kind of a blur. I remember one guy jumping out of a third floor window to get away. I remember passing out water bottles and donuts to people. I remember the people who live over there, almost all of them regulars, coming into the store in tatters just to get away from it (and in most cases grabbing a pack of smokes), a lot of them shaking from shock.
A few hours later we were just finishing up closing the store and my head was just about cleared. I talked to an arson investigator afterwards before I went home. Apparently someone had thrown a moltov cocktail down the entranceway. But there were no serious injuries, which was great to hear, and most of the damage was just smoke. They said that the speed in which the two of us responded saved a lot of damage and probably some very serious injuries.
A couple random highs and lows to close out on. The fact that nobody around the store wanted to help (one woman actually got angry at me for "ignoring her" while we were running out with extinguishers at first) was sad. Nobody would grab the extra extinguisher we had (the store has three) until we got to the apartments. Almost everyone was perfectly happy just watching the carnage. Also, come on people. There are five fire trucks across the street. Smoke is still coming out of the building. Do not walk into the store and ask me if there was a fire.
On a higher note though, someone walked in at that point and said, with a perfectly straight face: "This is like the worst time ever to ask this...but do you guys sell firewood?"