{"id":30853,"date":"2006-08-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-07T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/2006\/08\/07\/six-alarm-fire\/"},"modified":"2006-08-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-07T03:00:00","slug":"six-alarm-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/six-alarm-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Alarm Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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The moisture has come inside this morning, warm as a blanket. It had been dry and cool almost all through July and into August. I knew that was not going to last, not after the fire trucks left yesterday. <\/p>\n

I was surprised by the magnitude of the response. I drive up on the service drive and could not get across the major avenue because of the hoses deployed on the pavement. I had to circumnavigate the block in my car to reach the back entrance to the parking lot, where another big red truck nearly blocked access. <\/p>\n

Proceeding slowly across the back of the building I found Ladder Four in position at the point where the ramp goes down to the garage, and at the foot near the dual doors stood two firefighters manning large portable fans. <\/p>\n

It looked as though there had been a fire in the garage, or so I surmised, though it appeared as I crept slowly along the front fa\u00e7ade of the building that they had been ready for a full-scale evacuation. <\/p>\n

Must have been a six alarm fire, I thought, probably based on contingency plans built around the density of the Big Pink population. <\/p>\n

I found a place to park by the swimming pool. Ms. Hamilton was arrayed on her yellow couchette there, and had been there right through the crisis. I asked her about it, marveling at the quality of her tan. She said it seemed pretty significant, and hoped that whatever had happened inside had not affected her place on the fourth floor. <\/p>\n

The floods of Spring had been quite enough for her. That was the morning when everyone was at work and the big hot water collector had corroded through and sent the liquid coursing eight floors, right to the basement to flood Uncle Bill’s Lincoln. <\/p>\n

Bill was there, too, and being a wine connoisseur, has an excellent nose. He was of the opinion that the smell indicated an electrical fire, possibly originating at the main circuit bus. <\/p>\n

It was curious, since the power appeared to still be on. I scampered up the walkway and opened up the poolside unit to check for damage, and find my spare swimsuit. <\/p>\n

The smell was acrid, but there appeared to be no water intrusion. The radio still murmured in the background, the words talking about rockets and death far away. I put on my trunks and wandered back out to the pool to insert myself into the deep end and cool off. <\/p>\n

I was treading water when Richard and Tio walked by the fence, heading away from he garage exit. Richard is the Mayor of Big Pink, or more precisely the paid Community Manager. He doesn’t really need to work any more, since he has one of the nice pensions for the old Phone Company. He likes to keep his hand in, running the building, and comforts himself with the knowledge that he can tell us all to get stuffed, if he feels like it. <\/p>\n

Tio is the resident engineer, a wiry little Puerto Rican with a prominent moustache who used to be in the Air Force. He makes his living, and free rent, keeping large systems of a certain age limping along.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Richard looks a little like the old movie actor Eric Von Stromheim, only with a sly grin. I paddled slowly over to the side and called out to them. <\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdWhat’s the status, Richard?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd I said. \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdWhat burned?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

Richard gestured grandly toward the building. \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdDominion power’s transformer is five feet underwater. They are pumping out now, and should take about four hours.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdThen we are OK?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd I sputtered. <\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdNo,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd said Tio. \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdThat is just to get a dry path to the electrical bus board. That is what fried.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdBut there is still power,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd I said. \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdWhat gives?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdYou have electricity,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd said Richard, \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdBut if you are interested in hot water or air conditioning, you might want to find a hotel.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdI’ll just turn up the fan,\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd I called back. \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdThis won’t go on that long, will it?\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdYou turn up that fan, Sport, along with everyone else, and maybe we can fry what’s left of the system.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Richard smiled as they rounded the back fence of the enclosure. \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdThey can’t start to work on the main bus until Dominion dewaters the transformer.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

Ladder Four lumbered by, the American flags hanging limply from their staffs on the roof. As they disappeared behind the brick wall, I heard Richard say over the rumble of the diesel engine \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdThe outage probably includes the pool circulation pump, so enjoy the afternoon while the water is safe.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

Later, I clambered up the stairs to the unit on the fourth floor. The elevators were out, of course, and when I opened the door I could feel the warm air hit me. The sun flooded in the windows, and I began to unbutton the unit, cranking open the windows, room by room, and positioning the fan in the bedroom so that it blew across the head of the bed. <\/p>\n

I could almost hear the books swelling with the humidity, and the smell of disintegrating pulp began to swirl in the moist breeze. When the sun went down I started out huddled on top of the quilt, in the direct path of the fan’s artificial breeze. <\/p>\n

With the windows wide open, the sounds of the night were with me for the first time in months. When the thunderstorms started in the small hours, the sounds reminded me of artillery. <\/p>\n

As the evening’s air cooled, I moved under the covers, one layer at a time. In my fitful dreams, I constructed a missile defense system against rockets, integrating sensors and network, and imagining the negotiations with the companies that build the kinetic kill systems we would have to acquire to make it succeed. <\/p>\n

I turned over. This was worse than counting sheep. I thought. What is it like when the main circuit bus is taken out with rockets or smart bombs? What if the fan doesn’t work, and the back wall of the apartment is completely gone? <\/p>\n

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com <\/p>\n

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The moisture has come inside this morning, warm as a blanket. It had been dry and cool almost all through July and into August. I knew that was not going to last, not after the fire trucks left yesterday. I was surprised by the magnitude of the response. I drive up on the service drive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}