we didn't start the fire
The old Murray complex is on fire. Again. It's this abandoned building on my street and another street, used to be a factory/warehouse, and has been abandoned for my entire life. It was just on fire not even two months ago.
Joey called me at 9:30 this morning to ask if I saw the flames. [I didn't because I was at James's house.] It's 8:30pm and it's STILL burning. The fire department has been there for the entire day. There are hoses everywhere. The roads are closed. It's pretty crazy.
The power in this section of the city went out briefly but it was back on in an hour or so. My street still doesn't have power, though. I'm updating from Mom and Dad's. We took everything from our freezer and moved it into Mom and Dad's freezer, and took everything from the fridge and put it into coolers with ice. We lose power pretty often around here, at least once a month for a few hours in a storm or something, but the fire chief said it probably won't be back on until tomorrow morning. Apparently there's a very high voltage line that runs right near/under the burning building, which would make for an enormous electrical fire if it melted.
I'm worried about my fish. =( I called Joe in a slight panic and he said the only thing I could really do was aerate the water by mixing it. At least the temperature is stable!
I have to take a shower at James's tonight because our water is filthy and so is the water at Mom and Dad's.
This sucks. =(
Allan took pictures this afternoon around 4pm or so from his cell phone, so I'll post a pair of the good ones here. The smoke is mostly white still--in the beginning it was thick thick black smoke, then it got progressively lighter. Allan was at work today though and he said it looked like a volcano in the middle of the city from the mall parking lot. It was a HUGE fire. People could see it from I-81, from Pittston, from Plymouth, and I think from as far away as Scranton. HUGE fire. Oh, and it's most definitely arson, because there's no electricity in the building itself. It was arson last time, too.
[None of those are my house, though, I live on the other end of the street, about 6 houses down from the ones seen in the first picture.)
That isn't even the building with the most damage--the one behind it is the one that was burning the most and is currently still on fire. Like, holy crap lol.
Edited to add 10-22 at 4:11pm
They are still hosing the building down, I guess so it doesn't keep smoldering and stuff. We got our power back this morning at about 9am, thankfully. My tank is okay even though it had gone down to 71 degrees, despite my putting bags of hot water into it and keeping it insulated with towels and my comforter for most of the night.
Everyone is accounted for except Dotty, the spotted mandarin. She's a hider though, and I often go for days without seeing her, so I'm thinking she's still alive hiding somewhere in the rocks. Clarkey the Clarkii clown and Merlin the purple firefish are swimming normally and don't appear to have any parasites.
Tonight I think I'm going to get some spring water from Wal-Mart and get it ready for a water change, which will be completed tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm also going to add some carbon to my filtration tonight. I dosed the top-off water today with AmQuel+ (Sara knows how awesome that stuff is!) and I'll be checking all my parameters tonight. I think the worst is over. =)
ETA 1:40am 10-23
Dotty is alive and well. =)
Also, news articles here, here, and here. The Bob Moss mentioned in the second article lives across the street from us. The Jon Juka who took one of the pictures from the third article is a buddy of mine who went to Coughlin for a while and goes to Misericordia now. He was Candace's RA last year and is awesome.
Joey called me at 9:30 this morning to ask if I saw the flames. [I didn't because I was at James's house.] It's 8:30pm and it's STILL burning. The fire department has been there for the entire day. There are hoses everywhere. The roads are closed. It's pretty crazy.
The power in this section of the city went out briefly but it was back on in an hour or so. My street still doesn't have power, though. I'm updating from Mom and Dad's. We took everything from our freezer and moved it into Mom and Dad's freezer, and took everything from the fridge and put it into coolers with ice. We lose power pretty often around here, at least once a month for a few hours in a storm or something, but the fire chief said it probably won't be back on until tomorrow morning. Apparently there's a very high voltage line that runs right near/under the burning building, which would make for an enormous electrical fire if it melted.
I'm worried about my fish. =( I called Joe in a slight panic and he said the only thing I could really do was aerate the water by mixing it. At least the temperature is stable!
I have to take a shower at James's tonight because our water is filthy and so is the water at Mom and Dad's.
This sucks. =(
Allan took pictures this afternoon around 4pm or so from his cell phone, so I'll post a pair of the good ones here. The smoke is mostly white still--in the beginning it was thick thick black smoke, then it got progressively lighter. Allan was at work today though and he said it looked like a volcano in the middle of the city from the mall parking lot. It was a HUGE fire. People could see it from I-81, from Pittston, from Plymouth, and I think from as far away as Scranton. HUGE fire. Oh, and it's most definitely arson, because there's no electricity in the building itself. It was arson last time, too.
[None of those are my house, though, I live on the other end of the street, about 6 houses down from the ones seen in the first picture.)
That isn't even the building with the most damage--the one behind it is the one that was burning the most and is currently still on fire. Like, holy crap lol.
Edited to add 10-22 at 4:11pm
They are still hosing the building down, I guess so it doesn't keep smoldering and stuff. We got our power back this morning at about 9am, thankfully. My tank is okay even though it had gone down to 71 degrees, despite my putting bags of hot water into it and keeping it insulated with towels and my comforter for most of the night.
Everyone is accounted for except Dotty, the spotted mandarin. She's a hider though, and I often go for days without seeing her, so I'm thinking she's still alive hiding somewhere in the rocks. Clarkey the Clarkii clown and Merlin the purple firefish are swimming normally and don't appear to have any parasites.
Tonight I think I'm going to get some spring water from Wal-Mart and get it ready for a water change, which will be completed tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm also going to add some carbon to my filtration tonight. I dosed the top-off water today with AmQuel+ (Sara knows how awesome that stuff is!) and I'll be checking all my parameters tonight. I think the worst is over. =)
ETA 1:40am 10-23
Dotty is alive and well. =)
Also, news articles here, here, and here. The Bob Moss mentioned in the second article lives across the street from us. The Jon Juka who took one of the pictures from the third article is a buddy of mine who went to Coughlin for a while and goes to Misericordia now. He was Candace's RA last year and is awesome.