Excitement At Work – Almost

It was a typical day at work. For me it’s Tuesday – for everyone else, Monday. The weather was fine, so little trouble in that regard.

I came in, prepared the forecast and graphics, appearing on three newscasts and a webcast. Nothing terrible. I’m not exactly carrying cargo at the docks. I’m a lucky guy with a job I enjoy.

After dinner I returned to my desk – but not for long. There was a commotion in the newsroom. Outside, at the far corner of the building, off the street and away from casual observers, one of our longtime photographers had seen, and then smelled, smoke.

We called the fire department.

As far as I can tell, it is standard operating procedure for the fire department to get you out if they might be going in. We all filed out of the station and into the parking lot. Luckily, the weather was great.

The firehouse is only a few blocks away and it wasn’t long before a chief showed up in an SUV followed quickly by two fire engines full of firemen (I know they’re firefighters now, but each and every one that responded to our call was a guy).

As going to the dentist stops the pain in your teeth, calling the fire department stops the smoke! The building was inspected, but nothing was found. They even pulled the aerial ladder off one of the trucks and took a bird’s eye view of the roof.

Out in the parking lot, we milled around. So did most of the firefighters, each wearing what looked like heavy and cumbersome equipment.

Even though nothing was found, it was the absolute right thing to call them. You just don’t want to take a chance with fire. Anyway, it was also a chance for one of the firemen to ask about the marital status of one of our reporters – engaged, sorry.

By the time we got the all clear it was too late to run our 10:00 O’clock news at 10:00 PM. Master control had thrown on a syndicated show and ran a ‘crawl’ at the bottom of the screen – we’d be on at 10:30 PM.

And we were.

By the way, these late breaking, on-the-scene pictures of our faux catastrophe are EXCLUSIVE to geofffox.com and won’t be seen anywhere else.

2 thoughts on “Excitement At Work – Almost”

  1. Fire is indeed a tricky element,nothing to be fooled around with.Calling was smart, it is always better to be safe than sorry.Hopefully nobody was practicing marshmelow toasting in the bathroom on the sly.With all this good weather its marshmellow season.~Peace Glenna~

  2. Fire is indeed a tricky element,nothing to be fooled around with.Calling was smart, it is always better to be safe than sorry.Hopefully nobody was practicing marshmelow toasting in the bathroom on the sly.With all this good weather its marshmellow season.~Peace Glenna~

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