Quantcast
Channel: Stray Hawkeye » stories
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Probably my most interesting commute of the week

0
0

This morning I left for work a little early because I had a 9:00 meeting that I was supposed to go to, and I wanted to be sure to get in early enough that I could start up my computer and catch up on any new emails before the meeting.  So, I left home around 8:20 or so, and headed over to 35W south to head to work.  Kind of the standard stuff – potholes, idiots who don’t know how to merge, a few people driving way too fast, a few way too slow, and, right around when I got to the Diamond Lake Road exit, a giant mushroom cloud of flames that was about 200 feet tall.  A little something like this (particularly towards the end of the video):

Except I was driving about two blocks away exactly at the moment of the initial blast, which was probably twice as high as the above.

My first thought was I should pull over and call 911, and as the though crossed my mind, 4 or five cars in front of me pulled over.

Okay, so really the first thought to cross my mind was something to the effect of HOLY F(*@ING S#!+ #%)Q ^&# $)^&!# ^)#@*$@ #)*^* ^&# !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Then, oh, I should call 911. Followed by, oh, those people probably have it covered.

Followed by, why is it so hot all of the sudden. Because in my car with the windows up, 2 blocks away (though straight downwind), going 60mph, it suddenly got really, really hot in my car. Like in a short sleeve shirt, no jacket, and sweating hot.

Followed by little bits of burnt, melty gunk falling on my wind shield.

My next thought was, hmm, I should get the #$%^ out of here, because though the inital fireball had gotten smaller (and by smaller, I mean what you see in the video above), it kept burning. And there not being much black smoke would mean some kind of fuel burning rather than a house or car or something. And if there’s one tank of fuel to blow up, there could be a bigger one next to it.

So, I kept driving to work and could see the base of the flame from the highway as I drove past, just like at the end of the video above, except from the other side and a little higher up. In case you’re not familiar with the area, it looks something like this:

The explosion happened when I was where the blue line starts, straight east of the fire was where it got really hot and I could see the base of it burning. Note this is pretty much exactly the chunk of highway that got shut down as soon as police could get there to block it off.

By time I got to work, I still didn’t know what exactly it was. However, I work a couple of stories up above the trees line and could still see it clearly from my desk, about 4 or 5 miles away. Okay, not quite from my desk, I’m not that close to the window. But if you stood up and took a couple of steps to down the row, you could see it from there. About ten minutes later reports started popping up on local news sites that there was a fire of some sort, and about twenty minutes after that that it was a gas main that exploded.

It burned for a good hour more after that, visible from miles away the whole time.

There’s a fair amount of coverage, pictures, and videos on the local news sites:

Also alternate titles for this post that are okay to laugh at now because we know no one got hurt:

  • I was hoping for a spring warm up, but this is ridiculous!
  • Minneapolis fails in bid for winter Olympics, but is awarded temporary custody of the torch as consolation
  • Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Smores For Everyone!
  • The Vulcan Krewe is really getting out of hand, well, more than usual
  • Minneapolis starts new St Patrick’s tradition, falls to outshine Chicago’s green river (seriously, while standing by the window watching this thing burn from miles away, my coworkers started talking about how amazing the green river in Chicago is, and how bright of a green it is, you know, not dark like you’d expect, and how the boats go back and for to mix it up after the first boat FOR FUCK’S SAKE WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THIS WHEN THERE’S A GIANT PLUME OF FLAME RIGHT FUCKING THERE!?!?!?)

So, hopefully the drive to and from work tomorrow will be a little less eventful.  Might stop and get a Shamrock Shake on the way home though.  So there’s that.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images