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

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.