I’m on a road that parallels the big road that I’m about to get on when I notice a ‘blue light special’ on the big road and he looks to be in a hurry. Well, being the nice guy I am I grabbed the mic to let the folks already on the big road know he’s coming. You know, as sort of a public service.
I’m also listening to my mobile scanner while we’re at it. I managed to get a job out of that a long time ago. But that’s a story for another post.
So I key up the mic and squeal!!! Damn! Feedback from the new speaker I just added to the scanner. The radios are cross-talking somehow. I’ll have to look into that. Sometime when I’m not driving. I could shut off the scanner and put out the call but by then the cop will be long gone. Guess I’ll stay on the side and just listen to both radios.
Mere moments later I hear this cop on the scanner sounding like he’s in a panic.
Officer: There’s fire shooting out of the roof!
Dispatch: (garbled)
Officer: Yes! It’s on fire! Get the fire department here right now!
Dispatch: What’s your location? Where are you?
Officer: Victory Motors! (garbled) There’s fire coming out the roof! Get the fire department down here!
While the above dialogue was reconstructed from several hours old memory, and I was driving at the time and not exactly taking notes, it captures the gist of the conversation as I heard it.
Victory Motors. That name sounds vaguely familiar.
I bought a pickup truck a couple of decades ago at a Victory Auto Sales. But they’ve been out of business since shortly after the transaction. Oh well. I can’t place it off the top of my head. I’ll probably Google it when I get home if I think of it.
Dispatch: (garbled) yes, I have five more State Troopers about a minute away. Tell me where you need them deployed.
Holly crap, it must be big…
Oh look, that’s probably where the much more local Statey was going. There are blue lights up ahead round about the ramp I was going to take. And of course there’s a sea of brake lights to counterpoint the flashing blue of the cruiser.
Fairly typical rush hour traffic actually.
So we finally get up to the ramp and it looks to be moving.
This is one of those ramp complexes where you have two lanes of ramp traffic off to the side and the travel lanes get backed up anyway because nobody wants to leave any room for the other guy to merge after the ramp.
At least we’re moving. Hey wait! Why are we suddenly NOT moving? The three cars immediately in front of me merge left and go around the SUV and car that were in front of them. A few moments later I get an opening in the traffic, follow suit and get an eye full of why they’re stopped. Oh my… They took the concept of ‘merge’ a little too literal! Those aren’t going to be driving away except on a couple of flatbeds!
Looks like the cop is about done with the disabled he was talking to as I pull up in back of him with my four-ways on. I climbed down from my van as he walks back to me. “You’ve got a rear-end crash back up the ramp” says I tossing a thumb over my shoulder. He looks past me and asks if I was involved. “Nope.” “OK then. I gotta back up…” I climb back in the van and head along on my way.
And I haven’t even mentioned the note I was about to leave under the wiper of the car next to me in the company parking lot because I noticed the right front tire was almost flat. Didn’t need the note after all because the car’s human showed up while I was writing.
Not my usual boring commute…
So anywho, I finally got round to checking the news websites to see if there was anything about that fire.
Fitchburg?
Explosion?
There?!?
Holly crap! I know that place! I’ve bought stuff there! I’ve chatted with that guy! What’s more, a friend of mine used to own that white house in the background of the ‘live remote’ that is the top story at the moment on NECN!
Small world… And Fitchburg PD has a powerful repeater!
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