Rubberneckers unite
We're in our morning planning meeting -- a bunch of hardened, cynical, ink-stained wretches -- talking about what's going on today, including whether we should write about a car bomb exercise drill that local law enforcement is conducting near A&T.
The photo director's walkie-talkie screeches and out comes the voice of one of our shooters who just happens to be on the way to photograph the drill. He reports that a real fire call has gone out from a site at A&T. The photo director looked east out of a window two rooms away and said he could see the billowing black smoke.
In the same way that everyone stops to watch a fire engine pass, everyone in the room looked, and, effectively stopping the meeting, two of us got up, crossed the two rooms and looked straight out the window.
Gotta love the news business.
As it turned out, the smoke we saw was as a result of the drill. Some people who didn't know called it in as a real fire.
Comments (2)
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seventeen yrs ago I retired from eden city pd.. a Henry Co. deputy(martinsville) told me that due to budget cuts, HCSO responded to alarms at Philpott Dam at Bassett,Va. he had ressponded and the dam was full of leaks and fissures..the dam was completed in 1949 and designed to last fifty years...DUH! we need someone to tell us what happens when...not if...this dam goes..in eden low lying areas, dan river steam station..downriver, most of Danville is gone..imagine...fear!!
Posted on May 15, 2008 12:28 PM
seventeen yrs ago I retired from eden city pd.. a Henry Co. deputy(martinsville) told me that due to budget cuts, HCSO responded to alarms at Philpott Dam at Bassett,Va. he had ressponded and the dam was full of leaks and fissures..the dam was completed in 1949 and designed to last fifty years...DUH! we need someone to tell us what happens when...not if...this dam goes..in eden low lying areas, dan river steam station..downriver, most of Danville is gone..imagine...fear!!
Posted on May 15, 2008 12:29 PM