Weird Quiet

[kenjari]

Today there was an explosion and fire in a Kendall Square office building. This building is diagonally across from the one in which I work. The odd thing is, despite the fact that we can see that building from our area, we didn't really hear or notice much until it was mostly over. The explosion itself happened in the basement, so I guess the sound couldn't have carried much outside the building, but we didn't see much in the way of smoke or hear lots of loud sirens. When I left work after 4pm, it was a pretty eerie sight, though. The building was deserted and unnaturally dark for that time of day, except for the fire alarm lights that could be seen flashing on every floor. The audio part of the alarm had been shut off, though, so it was strangely silent. I could see where some of the windows had been broken by workers awaiting rescue, to allow air into floors choked with black smoke. Then I turned the corner to the front of the building, and there were still a whole bunch of police and firemen there.
Is it weird that I feel kind of guilty that such a scary and terrible thing could happen so close by without my really noticing it?

Comments

[alphacygni]

It's been interesting to read the several posts about this on my friends list, especially from the several people who all work within a building or two of 1 Broadway (which includes me), and had similar oddly detached reactions. After a few people saw the headline on boston.com, there was a slight rush to go look out windows facing in that direction. I couldn't see much about the building itself, but the emergency vehicles lined up as far as I could see on every street were very strange.

I found myself wondering where all the evacuated people went, since I didn't see them standing around on the sidewalks. The Mariott, maybe?

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I think most of them did go to the Mariott - the evening news mentioned that the hotel lobby was used as a makeshift ER.

[ladybird97.livejournal.com]

Eeek! That's really scary! I'm glad you're OK!

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Somebody else on my f-list posted that yes that was his building you saw on boston.com that had the fire, but that he was home safe, and I didn't go and investigate what had happened; I presume it was the same thing. I'm glad to know both of you are safe; creepy!

One Month Later

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I got to hear a lecture on that explosion from my boss. It was fascinating to hear about, but in his words it was a total "f--k-up." Ironically, people on the higher floors were told to evacuate when it would have been safer to stay where they were so they wouldn't have to deal with smoke inhalation. It took a full hour to explain the number of things that went wrong, so I won't repeat it here, but it was interesting.