The Towering Inferno... just feet from my school

[Matthew Williams]

I went to school earlier today, and someone was working to fix some sort of water main... horrendous traffic tie-ups, but nothing really major. I do my research, leave around 3, get home at 3:15.

Then, all hell proceeds to break loose. I think I should just post a picture:

http://adultswim.toonzone.net/fireball04-web.jpg

See that small building down there? That's the 7-story ghetto apartments my university leases. The flames were leaping about 100 feet into the sky, far above the apartments. Apparently what they thought was a water main was actually a gas main, they ruptured it, and, well, yeah...

Luckily, amazingly, NOBODY GOT HURT in all this! But that area looks like a war zone, and sine I have to get by that area in order to enter the premises, well... let's just say Monday afternoon looks incredibly interesting.

[zmanjz]

I went to school earlier today, and someone was working to fix some sort of water main... horrendous traffic tie-ups, but nothing really major. I do my research, leave around 3, get home at 3:15.

Then, all hell proceeds to break loose. I think I should just post a picture:

See that small building down there? That's the 7-story ghetto apartments my university leases. The flames were leaping about 100 feet into the sky, far above the apartments. Apparently what they thought was a water main was actually a gas main, they ruptured it, and, well, yeah...

Luckily, amazingly, NOBODY GOT HURT in all this! But that area looks like a war zone, and sine I have to get by that area in order to enter the premises, well... let's just say Monday afternoon looks incredibly interesting.
Ah, so you go to La Salle? my brother (at Temple University) could see the flames from his dorm room.

I hope that this doesn't cause you too much trouble, and I'm glad that no one was hurt.

[Sir Gatts]

Get a ten foot pole or three and set up a rotisserie.
/Block party

[The Falcon]

i saw the thread title and i was thinking of the old movie. i'm like "cool, the movie was shot close to his school!" but, this is just as interesting. i'm glad nobody was hurt. now all you need to do is get all your friends together and make a gigantic marshmallow. i believe you know what to do with it ;)

Hero

[Delthayre]

Well, that's certainly dramatic. But thank fortune no one was hurt.

I have a friend at Temple, I wonder if he saw it.

[jeffrey 228]

Man that is too close for comfernt and I just hope that just an accendent and all and not just on purpose and stuff.

[Tienshin]

What on Earth is "Ogontz and Olney"? :confused:

Anyway, that must have been a spectacle...and a miracle no one was hurt.

[Jerry Mouse]

What on Earth is "Ogontz and Olney"? :confused:It's the intersection of Ogontz and Olney Avenues in Philadelphia.

[Delthayre]

It's the intersection of Ogontz and Olney Avenues in Philadelphia.
They sound like they should be in Russia.

Maybe it was an arsonist who was very confused and trying to burn him some reds.

[tigerrunner]

Yeah, I head about this story in a tiny little snippet on the 11 o'clock news here in NY. That fire looked terrifying... but, once again, it's good that nobody got hurt. But seriously, if the city was working on the water main (which I'm assuming they were), you think they'd have some kind of way to tell which main is which. Oh well, I guess accidents can happen, though this one could very well have killed a lot of people.

[guinaevere]

I'm glad no one was hurt.

I don't know what it is this year... it seems every morning or afternoon, as I listen to the news, I hear of another fire in the atlanta area... is it like that in other partsof the country, too?

I know winters can be bad times for apartment fires and the like what with old heaters or something like that... but this year, it's just one big fire after another.

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

Apparently what they thought was a water main was actually a gas main, they ruptured it, and, well, yeah...
...they're stupid idiots? Heh. :rolleyes: At any rate, great to hear that no one was hurt.

This reminds me of a time when I was right beside an inferno and didn't even know it at first. I was sitting down reading a book in my 3rd story apartment when I saw something moving outside the window. I got up to look and imagine my shock when I saw this huge fireball rising out of the mechanics garage shop next door! (only 20 feet away or so) Then I heard *POP POP POP* as cans/tanks of oil/paint/gas/oxygen/propane exploded. As in the case of Ogontz & Olney, no one was hurt. I don't think anyone was there, which was so fortunate, as there were a huge amount of flammable items in there and the building pretty much exploded. In the end, the main structure, made of concrete, was fine, and the office in the front seemed okay, but the rest of it, including the roof, was entirely destroyed. Also, there was extensive damage to a car parked beside it and power lines were snapped. Oh, and the back of a Merkur XR4Ti parked on our side melted! :p