First was the backup caused by YET ANOTHER steel coil lost from a tractor-trailer on I-59/20. I'd just gotten on the Interstate (going the other way, thankfully) and saw that the other side going east was at a dead stop.
Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, or the buzzards to Hinkley, Ohio, the regularity of falling steel coils has become something of a looked-forward-to event. Not really.
Next, when I was coming back from Cooper Green, I saw this warehouse fire. Or rather, the smoke from it. But you know what they say about smoke and fires!
I even got to drive right by the warehouse and see the firemen setting up their perimeter. Everyone else in all the surrounding warehouses were out looking too. Pretty cool, if you can call destruction of property cool. Or fire, for that matter, which is usually pretty hot. The headline of that NBC story struck me as humorous, too, for some reason--"Fire Burns In Downtown Birmingham." As far as I know, fire burns pretty much everywhere, not just in downtown Birmingham.
I just hope I don't come down with some sort of weird respiratory thing--the smoke that was coming out was a peculiar tan color. Blech. This update from The Birmingham News says it's a shoe warehouse. THE MANOLO WILL BE SO DISTURBED!
UPDATE: 1:40 p.m.--not just some shoes--one MILLION pairs of shoes. That, my friends, is a LOT of shoes.
UPDATE: 2:19 p.m.--Hey, they got pictures now. The thick black smoke would be paper and wood--the lighter-colored smoke (the stuff I saw when it was first getting started) I assume is the stuff the shoes were made out of.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at June 8, 2006 12:33 PMI just watched the news clip on nbc 13's website. (Note that al.com, fox6 and abc 33/40 do not have any mention of the truck accident or the warehouse fire on their websites. Our news outlets suck. I mean, at least NBC reported it, even if their headline is stupid.) The fire is burning a warehouse filled with prison work shoes and flip flops for a nation-wide distributor.
And here's another update from The News.
I imagine this could be a Not Good Thing if that next-door warehouse becomes involved.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at June 8, 2006 12:43 PMYep, batteries.
From now on when there is breaking news I will check Possumblog first. The news outlets should learn from the master. ;)
Posted by: megabeth at June 8, 2006 12:44 PMOh, come on now--I didn't get back to work in time to have the scoop on everyone, although, it is true that I did find myself locked in mortal struggle as I tried to fight my way through the choking smoke, the steady pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of my trusty Swedish tank carrying me safely, finally, away from the conflagration.
I have that memory that is seared--seared--in me.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at June 8, 2006 12:50 PMSounds like Imelda Marcos just clearing out some closet space.
Posted by: Skinnydan at June 8, 2006 02:48 PMDoes this mean a shortage of flip flops just when I intended to buy some to wear the enxt time I go to the White House?
Posted by: Larry Anderson at June 8, 2006 02:51 PMLarry, only if you plan on visiting while you're out on work-release. I just hope they are able to salvage enough so that Don Siegelman doesn't have to walk around the yard in his benchmade Crockett & Jones wingtips.
And Skinnydan, you leave poor Imelda out of this! She would weep buckets for the deaths of so many shoes!
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at June 8, 2006 02:57 PM