DISASTER DAY #1

If anyone watches the national news, apparently our gas explosions are making headlines, and as well they should. An innocent young man was killed and a girl broke pretty much every bone in her body falling through an exploding house.

I arrive home on Thursday to nothing unusual.  I am getting ready for a meeting when I think I smell natural gas.  I sniff my oven, and it does seem to smell a bit more than usual. I think maybe I am insane until I jaunt upstairs to change my clothes from school-wear to meeting-wear.  It smells strongly of gas upstairs, too, even though all the windows in my house are open and have been all day.

The phone rings, and normally I ignore the phone because I get so many robo-calls, but this one I answer.  It is the police telling me to shut off the main gas line in my house and evacuate the area. I notify neighbors as quickly as possible and interrupt my landlady in the front house.  Her house has no gas in it (probably because her windows are closed); mine is fuming.  We shut off my gas and hers.  (Everyone, learn how to do it.  I had NO idea.)

(Watching the city explode on television)

We quickly realize the staging area for emergency responders is about one hundred yards away (we have a major leak in the immediate area), and that we have to get out fast or be gridlocked in a danger zone.  I grab my daughter a half mile away, and we follow each other through the gridlock until we get to the back roads.

Once we settle down at a restaurant away from danger, reality sets it.  We watch the mayhem unfold on the television screen, and we watch other evacuees line up trying to get dinner and decide what the hell to do. When I left, I grabbed my wallet, my phone chargers and phone, and my school bag.  Yes, I grabbed my damn WORK BAG.  When we left our houses an hour ago, we had no idea what was going on except that the city next door (and now our town) appeared to be on fire.  Realizing the magnitude of the calamity right now as we watch the live news feed, I also realize that I have no credit cards to buy essentials nor to book a hotel and no check book to get cash the following day.

Friends and colleagues start offering help.  I run to a friend and coworker's home, discover I have enough extra random clothes in my trunk, and am lucky enough to be wearing fresh clothes (my meeting-wear) that I quickly change out of and fold for work the next day.  After all, I have my damn work bag and I cannot go home.

The only thing I don't have and can't really comfortably share with my friend is deodorant. I put out the all-call and get many offers from coworkers who will bring some to me.

But, this is just the beginning.  There is so very much more to come.