Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Where there's smoke, I guess there's fire

Yesterday, Sarah and I went out to the Premium Outlet mall in Wrentham. While there I lost my cell phone. We retraced our steps but we just didn't find it. I ended up suspending my service and today I went to get a replacement phone after work. I found a relatively cheap replacement in a prepaid phone. I figured I would use that until I could have the kids send my old phone. Once I got that done I headed over to the T station. I got on as usual, everything was going along normally. The train wasn't even very crowded. That is always pleasant.

When we got to the Park Street Station, I went further down into the belly of the city to catch my Red Line train. I got down there and I noticed a little bit of haziness. It doesn't seem too bad. There are fire department people down there and there is no sense of panic anywhere and so I proceeded to wait. Gradually the smoke got thicker and thicker and thicker. I decided to go stand a few steps up on the stairs because there was a little bit of a draft there and it wasn't as smoky. The next thing you know, the firemen are asking us to evacuate. The train is not going anywhere!!

I walked up out of the station and started to ponder my option. I can just wait around and see if the train will be running soon; I can take a taxi home; or I've got it, I can walk down to the next Red Line station. It's a little ways but not too far and I actually know the way. It's probably a 25-30 minute walk. My thinking was that the Red Line will be running down there and I can get on and head back home.

On my walk over I called Sarah because her apartment is on the way. I thought I would let her know what was going on in case I needed to a place to hang out while waiting. She lives relatively close, a 5-10 minute walk, to the station where I was headed. I met and visited with her for a few minutes and continued on my way.

As I got closer to the station, I saw lots and lots of people waiting and standing around. When I get there, I find out that the train wasn't running there either. Someone from the MBTA (Mass Bay Transit Authority) said that there would be shuttle buses along to take us out to Harvard Station. Ha Ha! I thought. There were several hundred people waiting there. That's going to take a long time. After waiting a good 20 minutes or so, I decided to head over to Sarah's to explore other options.

Sarah graciously offered me a snack to tide me over till I could get home. We looked at other possible routes by bus on the Internet but they were going to take a really long time. I called a taxi company and they said it was going to be $35. Wow! That's too much. So I waited a little longer and then walked back to the station.

At the station I waited another 5 or 10 minutes before a shuttle bus came along. There was a group of three buses. One of those really long, bend-in-the-middle kind, and two regular buses. I decided to try to get on the last bus because it didn't look quite as cram-packed. I almost got on! I was waiting outside the doors for some small space to open up at the door but it didn't. I got left out.

Fortunately the next bus came along within about 5 minutes or so. I got on that one with 80 or 90 of my closest (proximity) friends. We took the 20-25 minute drive to the Harvard Station. At the Harvard Station I caught my usual bus to head home. I got home at 8:15. It only took me 2 hours and 45 minutes! What a day! Oh yes, I forgot to mention that it was raining pretty good for part of my walk and wait. I did remember my umbrella though :-)

I found out during my stay at Sarah's that the smoke was from a small electrical fire. See thebostonchannel.com <http://www.thebostonchannel.com/mostpopular/16406871/detail.html> for more details. The small article doesn't give any indication of the magnitude of the effect it had on the hundreds or thousands of people who take the train.

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