As terrible as the fire was, at least it gave me a pretty good class lesson. Rarely do I have the opportunity to make a discussion on water pollution hit quite so close to home.
i live in Apex, about a mile from the south edge of the evacuation zone. i got to stay home friday, because i couldn't get to work - all the roads were blocked between my house and my job.
as far as i've been able to tell from news reports, the fire (or, the stuff that burned) was either not as bad as initial reports, or the Town did a great job of getting people out before anyone got hurt - probably a little of both. there were few people actually hurt who weren't firefighters (and, that's an inherently dangerous job regardless of what's burning), and there doesn't seem to be any lingering pollutants in the air, or on the ground - at least not once you get away from the site of the fire. all good news, of course.
now, the news around here is of people who are suing the company because they were forced to evacuate their houses - one lawyer on the radio this AM described his client's complaint as the tragedy of missing the comforts of home "which they were accustomed to" for "nearly 48 hours".
As terrible as the fire was, at least it gave me a pretty good class lesson. Rarely do I have the opportunity to make a discussion on water pollution hit quite so close to home.
Grady raises important questions, and I'm pleased to see some analysis of the watershed.
At Sustainability Southeast we also raise questions about how this incident reflects our investment in our health and the quality of our lives:
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/2006/10/06/health-of-apex-residents-…
Thanks for demonstrating interest in this!
i live in Apex, about a mile from the south edge of the evacuation zone. i got to stay home friday, because i couldn't get to work - all the roads were blocked between my house and my job.
as far as i've been able to tell from news reports, the fire (or, the stuff that burned) was either not as bad as initial reports, or the Town did a great job of getting people out before anyone got hurt - probably a little of both. there were few people actually hurt who weren't firefighters (and, that's an inherently dangerous job regardless of what's burning), and there doesn't seem to be any lingering pollutants in the air, or on the ground - at least not once you get away from the site of the fire. all good news, of course.
now, the news around here is of people who are suing the company because they were forced to evacuate their houses - one lawyer on the radio this AM described his client's complaint as the tragedy of missing the comforts of home "which they were accustomed to" for "nearly 48 hours".