10-06-2006, 06:13 PM
As you can see at left I live in the "small North Carolina town" on your evening news - the one with the giant chlorine gas explosion! Our house is about 1.5 miles from the site and just outside of the evacuation zone. I have to admit, last night after ensuring that the family was safe, that we were out of the evac zone, and the air conditioning system was turned off, I headed to the garage to cover the car. Goodness only knows what a chlorine gas cloud could do to the paint! I considered closing the garage door gap with towels but then realized that if seemed to my wife that I was more concerned with the car ... well you know how that one goes.
Looks like all is clear now and as I type this it looks like people are about to be allowed back to their homes. All of this leads to my boy scout tip of the day - have an evacuation plan for your family. Know how you will get in touch with family during the day if the cell phone system is overwhelmed (it was), and where important documents are. The people evacuated had just a few minutes to get out after they were notified by a 'reverse 911' phone call or a police officer banging on the door at 11 or 12 at night. This is not the time to try and figure out what you are going to do.
As an aside - It is cool to live in "Apex." A really nice little place with very good government and emergency services. And the name? According to the town it has something to do with being at the high ground between two river basins, blah, blah, blah... But I know a few backroad corners that I believe the town is really named for. <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/biggrin.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />
Looks like all is clear now and as I type this it looks like people are about to be allowed back to their homes. All of this leads to my boy scout tip of the day - have an evacuation plan for your family. Know how you will get in touch with family during the day if the cell phone system is overwhelmed (it was), and where important documents are. The people evacuated had just a few minutes to get out after they were notified by a 'reverse 911' phone call or a police officer banging on the door at 11 or 12 at night. This is not the time to try and figure out what you are going to do.
As an aside - It is cool to live in "Apex." A really nice little place with very good government and emergency services. And the name? According to the town it has something to do with being at the high ground between two river basins, blah, blah, blah... But I know a few backroad corners that I believe the town is really named for. <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/biggrin.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />
