Scary day in Philadelphia
I am here in Philadelphia this week working with Comcast in their towers right across from City Hall. I was walking back from lunch at about 1:15 and there was a massive BOOM in the alley in front of me. Everyone either hunched or screamed, I instinctively moved towards a door of the building I was walking in front of. A ton of birds took flight as the concussion bounced off all the cement and glass of the buildings.
After a few seconds of looking around, we all assumed the construction crane across the street had accidentally dropped its load until someone noticed that there was no one in the cab. We then all put ourselves back together and tried to continue on our way until a police officer stopped us about 10 feet from the alley and said there had been an explosion, that he couldn’t answer any questions, and we would need to turn around. After some protest by people I can only assume had really, really important things to do, I turned around. Not before I noticed the manhole cover had been flung off the manhole in the alley, and there was already a fire truck sitting in the street in front of the alley. The picture shows the alley and smoke (sorry for the quality, it is all my Motorola Q could muster).
I walked around the block and there was thick black smoke coming from the back of the tower that I was working in. When I reached the main entrance to City Center, fire alarms were ring, and people were streaming out of the building. The plaza quickly filled with thousands of people who were all looking skyward to see smoke drifting between the buildings.
Within 5 minutes, there were many fire trucks and a few ambulances. I hope that the firefighters are able to put out the fire, without any injuries. We also started seeing news helicopters hovering overhead getting shots of the smoke in the alley.
After about 20 minutes, everyone started to move across the street into the park that surrounds City Hall. If there was a real emergency, why do we always want to stand close to it and know what is going on? Is our flight response tainted? I blame rock n’ roll music and video games for numbing our sense of urgency. J
It sounds like the power company was doing some underground work when some transformers exploded. Which explains why police and fire trucks were already in the area.
I am back at my hotel in the business center writing this and letting my friend and family know that I am okay. I still hear many emergency vehicle sirens, so I can only assume that they are still battling the fire.
Now, I just have to figure out how to get my laptop back from the 33rd floor….
Update: A really cool security guard took me back up to the 33rd this evening to grab my tablet and bag. He told me that they were shutting power to the building off in a few minutes to fix whatever blew up. He said that the building probably wouldn't be open on Friday.