We interrupt this blog to talk about some breaking (or recently broken) news.
I'm sure you've read the story about the house that exploded in Queen Village. (Or seen the video) Fortunately, no one was hurt. The couple who owns the house was out at the time and judging from the scene, the houses on either side sustained minor damage. It's absolutely tragic for the owners to have lost everything and I hope they have the support they need to get through this.
Like I said in the title of the post, my wife and I live in a house that abuts the house that is directly across the street from the site of the explosion. When I heard a traffic report shortly after 4 about the closure of 6th and Bainbridge due to an explosion, my first thought was "please don't be my house." I searched frantically for news before finding some links on Philly Blog that led to more information and eased my fears that I'd be returning home to a pile of rubble.
What I did return home to, however, was this:
That's fire hose, originating at what must have been the closest fire hydrant, going over our front fence, wrapping by our tree and then going down the side of our house, through our neighbor's back yard and out to 6th Street. Apparently, my old charcoal grill was in the way so it was cast aside and broken into all of its component parts. Tragic, really. That grill was just two weeks away from retirement.
On the bright side, we did get a free tree watering and, for at least a couple hours, we had nice, serene little pond and fountain in our front yard:
It may be tough to tell, but that's a spray of water from the hose junction and two inches of water on the ground. You can also see where the slats were broken out of our gate in an aborted effort to get the hose through. It's unfortunate that we weren't home. We could have saved everyone, including the poor fire fighter who had to climb that fence, a lot of trouble by being there to open the gate.
Let me be clear. I'm sooo not complaining about any of this. I'm sure the cost to replace the lattice in the gate will be minimal and the water was gone by this morning. Our cat eventually returned from his hiding place after all of the firemen and news helicopters left and he seemed none the worse for wear. And, like I said, my trees got watered! Considering what my poor neighbors to the immediate east across the 6th Street border of Bella Vista and Queen Village returned to last night, I have plenty of reason to be thankful this morning.
It did make for an interesting night and gave me the chance to meet a few very helpful and concerned neighbors.
Comments (2)
WOW - scary. Glad no one is hurt and hope that everyone can get back "home" in the neighborhood safely and soon.
It must have been something in the air yesterday. We had a fluky thing in our neighborhood - a car sideswiped another car that was parked beside our house and flew up onto and past the sidewalk, plowing into our lawn, hedges and stopping a few feet shy of our children's playyard. Yikes!
Posted by Sbadeau![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://blogs.phillynews.com/dailynews/nextmayor/nav-commenters.gif)
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February 8, 2008 12:41 PM
Wow, I gotta read your stuff everyday, rather than every few days. Glad you & yours did not blow up. Shame about the grill. Maybe you should take it up north sometime...
Posted by thewegger | February 11, 2008 11:32 AM