On Thursday, September 9th, a massive natural gas explosion rocked San Bruno, a city about 12 miles south of San Francisco. You can read more about this terrible disaster here:
Workers and officials look over a crater caused by a massive explosion in a mostly residential neighborhood in San Bruno, Calif., Friday, Sept. 10, 2010. At least 50 people were hurt, with three suffering critical burns in the explosion Thursday evening that left a giant crater and sent flames tearing through the middle-class neighborhood of 1960s-era homes in hills overlooking San Francisco, the bay and the airport.
Doc Gurley has written an excellent post in which she examines human nature in the face of this disaster followed closely by the memory of the terrible events of 9/11 in New York City.
When disasters like the San Bruno blast destroy lives, I’d personally like, instead, to have us all shift just a wee bit of our attention toward the best of human nature that is often manifest in only the worst of tragedies.
What am I talking about? I’ve been in emergency rooms and around ambulances enough to know a bit of what it might have been like last evening in San Bruno. Not all the details – just an echo. But even that is enough to make my palms sweat.
Imagine the entire chain of human activity. The firefighters who drove straight toward the blaze, even as the tower rose higher and higher to engulf the very sky, knowing this was something no one with a hose and a truck could stop or even contain. The sweat and the sizzle as you run from one paint-bubbling house to the next, imagining the screams of children as you knock and yell and draw an X on one house, only to sprint, heart pounding, to the next......
It's an amazing heartfelt and moving post written by one who has been there on the front lines. Head over to Dr. Gurley and read it all.
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