Though the odds of them being in that part of the Twin Cities at rush hour was slim, calling my parents and getting the "all lines busy" message from cel and land lines for ten minutes was still a pretty horrifying experience.
Luckily, I've been able to get in touch with my sister and other friends in the area (including one who works less than a mile away) via email, IM, and forums.
So I fully support what Jim said in the first response: in a time of crisis, be prepared to use alternate communications channels. And I'm going to take to heart what he said about planning those channels before the disaster occurs rather than waiting until it does and scrambling. It might just be what convinces my mom to treat email more seriously.
That's terrible. Condolences, and hopes that you'll be able to recover as much data as possible.
My sympathy to everyone in the danger zone. Two forest fires swept through my neighborhood as a kid, and they're among some of my most vivid and terrifying memories.
Clicking through the series of photos Teresa linked, I found the caption on the third photo interesting: "A firefighting prison inmate takes cover from flames threatening homes in Devore, Calif." Are prisoners on the fireline new, or simply something I hadn't heard about before now?
Though there was the distinct possibility that I might come through as the character from Wisconsin (Donna), it turns out that I'm the character (Josh) played by an actor (Bradley Whitford) from Wisconsin. It's a match made at the corner of Fandom and Coincidence.
The American Memory film collection is a fantastic place to browse around.
One of my favorite discoveries is a series of early industrial films made at Westinghouse plants in Pittsburgh, downloaded when I was in search of reference on period machinery.
While watching "Panorama of Machine Co. aisle, Westinghouse works", an amazing overhead tracking shot taken high above the factory floor, I realized that I was watching a time before the assembly line--a chaotic plethora of tasks being done in a seemingly random cheek-to-jowl layout. Workers pushed, pulled, carryed, and hammered away, but where parts came from and how they were proceeding toward a finished product is far from obvious.
Oh, and many of the factory workers are wearing hats.
Truly a different time, and I'm incredibly grateful that some of it has been preserved and made available. (Of course, I'll still join the grumbling about how difficult it is to link to specific items in the collection...)
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