Fire

Monday evening I was at the gym when the lights flashed. A few minutes later a slew of fire trucks raced by the window. Shortly after I received a text from Danielle asking me if I saw the smoke. She told me that a powerbox had exploded and that the power was out. Seeing as it had reached 102 degrees on Monday, I took my time at the gym so I could skip the air conditioner and lights being shut off.

As I got closer to home, I realized that the power box she had mentioned was actually an Xcel power substation. I had to weave through the neighborhood to get home, and as I got closer I realized why. The explosion was one street away from my own. I parked my car and walked over to the next block to see what was going on. There was smoke, ash, and soot everywhere. People were swarming to the scene to see what was going on. It was clear that the explosion was more thsn just a little fire.

When I entered my building, there were alarms going off. I trecked my way up the 5 flights of stairs, only a little bit of dim light escaping from the hallways. The building was silent other than the alarms, and it felt empty like I wasn't supposed to be inside. My apartment was like an oven, and you could see nothing but flashing lights and smoke outside my window. I started searching the news on my phone to find out if the power would be coming back, and in the process found out that 31,000 people in Denver were without power due to the explosion. As it got darker outside, my apartment got creepier and creepier. I felt like I was in 911, and suddenly had visions of trying to run down the 5 flights of stairs to run from a fire.

Thankfully I had a friend that let me stay at her apartment that night. I later found out that power didn't come on til after midnight. Xcel has proceeded to call my phone every day at odd hours of the night and morning warning me that because we are sharing a power load that our power has to be shut off intermittently. It is a miracle that only one person was injured from the accident.