Well, *that* was interesting

[kengr]

A junkyard (auto wrecker) caught fire Monday morning. It was a mile or so away. Went to 5 alarms.

Lots of *nasty* black smoke from tires and car interiors (all those lovely plastics)

I didn't find out about it until I turned on the news at 4pm. Turns out we were a few blocks inside the "shelter in place" area.

There was an area much nearer to the fire that was evacuated.

I went to the store anyway (hey, I *literally* live next door to it).

Later around 9:30, while Fay and I were having our usual Monday TV night, Fay's roomie called her. Seems they'd expanded the evacuation area. she was going to head to the shelter and wanted us to go too.

I checked online and we were actually outside the evacuation area. Predictably the roomie didn't care. She called and texted several more times.

I just closed the windows and endured the temp in the apartment going up to 80.

When I got up today, I saw that it was raining. Air was much better./ and the news tonight said that the air quality was back to normal. Evac order dropped.

Comments

[alatefeline]

*hugs offered*

My coworker was also in the shelter in place zone.

[kengr]

Thanks for the hugs, but other than the air being a bit irritating (the pollen has been more annoying)it was not much of a think for me and Fay.

[stickmaker]

This reminds me of why I used to keep a camera at work.

There was a project to put up a *huge* new building near where I worked and bring state employees at other facilities - some of them rented - into one location. This was a good idea, but the execution left a lot to be desired. One of example was the following:

For decades there was a junkyard about half a block from where I worked, and also from where much of the construction was taking place. It was closed well before the work, but was essentially an undeclared hazmat site. Among other things they recycled lead acid batteries.

As part of the utility upgrades the contractors dug a trench through our back parking lot, and put in a large manhole at a bend. The hole promptly filled with the nastiest, most disgusting green stuff you could imagine. (The Skiffy Channel could make three movies from just how bad this stuff looked.)

Every few days a white pickup with the contractor's logo would park beside the hole. Several guys (always men) wearing white hard hats would get out, unroll plans across the hood of their truck, wave their arms and argue for a few minutes, then re-roll the plans, get back in the truck and leave. Turns out the pit was dug where a creek ran before the parking lot was put in. Guess where the runoff was coming from.

We joked it was the new state employee swimming pool.

[kengr]

Near where I used to work was a battery recycling place. There was a pond on the property. Always covered by floating bits of plastic from the car batteries casings.

That was just *one* of the Superfund sites clustered together there.