Did anyone remember to tell the employees.....

[Gilhelmi]

that a car in the gas stations parking lot is on fire?

A few months back, I was heading to work and stopped by the convenient store for food and drinks. This was around 3:30.

I saw a police officer help push a car that had a small engine fire from the pumps. Well, everything looks taken care of, none of the employees were too concerned and still ringing up customers.

About five minutes later, one of the cashiers noticed a fire truck pull in with their lights running. They don't do that while getting gas! So she investigated.

She rushed back inside and told her coworker to hit the PUMP SHUTOFF. (about 10min after the car had caught on fire and the officer radioed for a fire truck) The manager was very, very displeased over the situation.

I know the police officer that got servery chewed out over forgetting to tell the employees. Needless to say, he did NOT get a complementary cup of coffee that day.

(good to be back, been saving that one for a while)

[Slave to the Phone]

Shouldn't they have magically known what was going on just be virtue of working there?

If that had been my store, I would have been seriously pissed!

Back when I worked for the county of San Bernardino, I would go out behind the building and smoke on my breaks. One day I saw what looked like smoke coming out of the lawn and went to investigate while thinking I was going to stomp someone's still lit cigarette butt out. No, it was steam from one of the geothermal heat lines the county used. Maintenance came out and while digging up the pipe, cut through an underground power line. We closed the library and basically screwed around for the next couple of days, but we were all there.

While digging out the power line, they broke a gas line!

So, how did all of the Library staff find out that there was a broken gas line just outside the back door? I went out to smoke and was told that I should probably find somewhere else to do it.

My boss called her friend the police dispatcher who told her that yes, not only was there a broken gas line, all of the buildings surrounding the library were in the process of being evacuated.

[protege]

Shouldn't they have magically known what was going on just be virtue of working there?

Sadly, this sort of thing tends to go on more than you think. Several years ago, fire trucks showed up at my office. Seems one of the neighbors had been evicted from his apartment...broke back into the now-vacant unit, and was using the kitchen and bathroom to cook his meth Considering how meth labs tend to explode, getting a "get the fuck out" warning would have been nice. My boss actually went downstairs, and the firemen told him to get lost, and wouldn't tell him to tell his 3 dozen employees to get out of the building. Bastards

Of course, this is the same neighborhood that didn't evacuate when there was a gas leak across the street a few years earlier. A leak, that was caused by a construction crew of idiots using a skid loader. Whoever was driving that loader got a bit too close to one of the *many* abandoned apartment buildings, and hit the gas meter, snapping the line Fire trucks came, street blocked, traffic detoured, and quite a few people evacuated. You could smell gas 2 blocks away. Did they bother clearing our side of the street? Of course not.

[gerund]

Considering how meth labs tend to explode, getting a "get the fuck out" warning would have been nice. My boss actually went downstairs, and the firemen told him to get lost, and wouldn't tell him to tell his 3 dozen employees to get out of the building. Bastards

Then of course there is the flip side. There was a gas storage place right next to some houses and the transport container (on a railway carriage) caught fire. The police told everyone to get out, but most of them knew better and every time the police told them to move back they moved a few yards and came back.

Another old man went back into his house to get something when it all went up. He was the only one to die.

One of the other observers told me later that he was sure they were far enough away until it exploded. He said "I turned and ran. I could feel the heat on my legs (he was wearing shorts) and then a woman in high heels ran past me and I realised I was not running fast enough."

It is a testament to the fire brigade and the police that Frank Schiller was the only one to die. One of the fireman who was hosing off the tank when it exploded had his earlobes burned off. That was the only part that was exposed from his safety gear.

I was working about 1.3 Kms from the explosion and the roof of the shed rattled from the back to the front. A lady who was part owner of the business grabbed one of the girls working there, ran out the back and jumped into her car and drove off towards the explosion. I wanted to stay where I was. I did not want to die.

The lady's husband gave her a serious talking to. He said that she had put herself and the girl she took with her in danger. She didn't like it, but had to concede she was wrong.

My point is, there are people who will run towards danger just to get a better view.

[Ironclad Alibi]

My point is, there are people who will run towards danger just to get a better view.

Do they think winning a Darwin award is a good thing?

Yes, I know they don't think.

[Tanasi]

My middle son is a fire-fighter and it scares me to death every time I hear of a gas fire and he is on duty. So far he's been very lucky. My oldest son is a Marine and he's someplace in Africa. I guess I now know how my Mom felt when I and my brother's were away to war.
Near my office a really big NG line was cut by a back-hoe and it burned for a few days before it went out. When it was all over there was nothing left of the back-hoe but a melted down puddle of metal, nothing of it survived, nothing. This was a large diameter pipe and under high pressure, the gas company cut it off from either end fairly quick but it took a long time for what was left to burn off. The FD chief said there was no way for them to extinguish it, just had to let it burn.
Nearly 20 years ago a tanker car on the rail-road in my parents town just broke in two one night and spilled it's contents onto the ground. It was some sort of caustic chemical that was very dangerous to breath. So to be safe the PD and FD evacuated the area within a mile of the tanker. It just so happened that mile ended across the street from my parents house. The neighbors across the street were evaced but not anyone on their side. My parents didn't call anyone and I heard of this from the radio. I called and told them to bug out to my sister's house. They still wouldn't go. I called the city mayor and he went up to their house and asked them to leave so he wouldn't worry about them and then they left. Stubborn parents they wouldn't leave to lessen their kids worries but would for someone else. :\

[notalwaysright]

Next year is the 20 year anniversary of a pipeline explosion in my town. I didn't even live here, but I've heard about it a lot. How basically a black wall of smoke was moving through town and nobody knew why, or where it was going. Gas had been leaking into a creek and then burst into flames moving down the creek, but the general townsfolk had no clue. They just went outside and saw this...



Yes, some things were closed and evacuated according to what I've read but the actual people who have talked to me about it were all left in the dark during the fire.

[MoonCat]

These people should remember the time a gas line in California ruptured a few years ago, and took out most of a subdivision. If the fire fighters tell you to get out, you need to get out.

[Deserted]

Yes, but that requires the FD to actually tell people to evacuate.