rufinia ([info]rufinia) wrote in [info]b0st0n,
@ 2006-12-08 11:18:00
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Kendall police activity?
I work near Kendall Square (across from the Gament District) and for the past ten minutes or so we've had police and fire trucks roaring past. Anyone know what's up?

boston.com has nothing, www.thebostonchannel.com has nothing, and MBTA.com transit updates have nothing.

EDIT: Fire at 1 Broadway, MBTA is running buses between Park and Central.

Edit Again: Regular Red Line service has resumed.

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[info]sweetbums
2006-12-08 04:22 pm UTC (link)
huge fire on broadway st

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[info]rufinia
2006-12-08 04:23 pm UTC (link)
Wow. We don't see any smoke, though.

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[info]sweetbums
2006-12-08 04:28 pm UTC (link)
I think they are saying a few people are still trapped on the roof and there may be a few inside. I hope everyone will be okay.

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[info]ron_newman
2006-12-08 04:42 pm UTC (link)
where on Broadway?

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[info]sweetbums
2006-12-08 04:43 pm UTC (link)
it's 1 broadway

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[info]ron_newman
2006-12-08 04:48 pm UTC (link)
That's the office building at the northeast corner of Main and Third street, which has a Wainwright Bank branch and a few other storefronts. It also has a big underground parking garage.

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[info]rufinia
2006-12-08 04:44 pm UTC (link)
1 Broadway, according to thebostonchannel.com, who had the story ten minutes before boston.com.

Slackers.

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[info]aprendiz
2006-12-08 06:18 pm UTC (link)
I'm sure Boston.com was too busy arranging the next deal to whore itself out to advertisers.

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[info]rufinia
2006-12-08 06:24 pm UTC (link)
I want to rip out that Kohl's background by the...flakes.

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[info]aprendiz
2006-12-08 08:33 pm UTC (link)
Well... it's a little more pleasant than Cingular Orange.

Just a little.

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[info]georgy
2006-12-08 04:42 pm UTC (link)
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/12/reports_of_30_p.html

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[info]littlestarletta
2006-12-08 04:47 pm UTC (link)
BREAKING NEWS: Firefighters are battling a blaze at an office building in Cambridge where there are reports of up to 30 people trapped on the roof. The fire is at 1 Broadway, an office building at the intersection of Main Street near the Longfellow Bridge.

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[info]tanpiover2
2006-12-08 04:47 pm UTC (link)
There's a fire of some sort at One Broadway.

That's all I know at this time.

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[info]ron_newman
2006-12-08 04:49 pm UTC (link)
I'm wondering why this would require stopping the subway....

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[info]rufinia
2006-12-08 04:55 pm UTC (link)
Because the fire is RIGHT NEXT TO the Longfellow bridge. Where the Red Line surfaces to cross the Charles.

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[info]ihavemeaning
2006-12-08 11:59 pm UTC (link)
The whole block lost power.

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[info]rufinia
2006-12-09 12:34 am UTC (link)
When I left work at 5, Kendall still didn;t have all power- the gates weren't on and about half the lights were off.

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[info]bkdelong
2006-12-08 05:01 pm UTC (link)
Allegedly a 5 Alarm Fire. Red Cross of Mass Bay (office right next door to 1 Broadway), has just put an email out to its trained Disaster services volunteers.

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[info]bkdelong
2006-12-08 05:07 pm UTC (link)
Floorplan from MIT:

http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?zoom=level2¢erx=712438¢ery=496823&oldzoom=level3&map.x=300&map.y=187

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[info]ron_newman
2006-12-08 05:04 pm UTC (link)
WBZ-TV 4 reports: at least 25 injuries, most due to smoke inhalation. An explosion in a room where NStar was doing work. Longfellow Bridge closed going outbound to Cambridge, still open the other direction. Red Line service just resumed.

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[info]smacaski
2006-12-08 05:09 pm UTC (link)
Hi everyone, I work in the building (I live in Central so I just walked home), so here's the first-hand account.

From what I heard the fire started in the basement. I can tell you right now, it smelled like an electrical fire, which would also explain all the power outages in the area and why the T isn't running. Some of my company's people were stuck on the low roof (the high-rise part is 16 stories, but there's also a lower addition where Dunkins and Wainright are that's about 5 stories). I saw a couple of windows smashed open around the 7th or 8th floor. Since it started in the basement, a lot of people had to exit out of the parking garage, which I think goes up to about the 5th floor--yeah, it's part of that low addition. There were also a lot of people with smoke inhalation--some people were vomiting on the sidewalk and coughing up some nasty shit. The ambulances had oxygen tanks and someone was handing out bottles of water because that smoke was nasty. I still have a burning sensation in the back of my throat, over an hour later.

I hadn't heard anything about any major injuries or smoke inhalation, and I think everyone is relatively okay, thank god(s). It hasn't really hit me until about 15 minutes ago how freakin' scary that was.

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[info]ron_newman
2006-12-08 05:13 pm UTC (link)
Wow -- thanks for the report, hope you're better soon.

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[info]smacaski
2006-12-08 05:21 pm UTC (link)
Thanks, I was one of the lucky ones who only got a little smoke inhalation. But now I smell like smoke--it's almost like a gunpowder smell. Ugh, I need a shower.

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[info]bikergeek
2006-12-08 06:54 pm UTC (link)
Glad you're mostly OK!

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[info]phatmike
2006-12-08 07:22 pm UTC (link)
FYI: you will probably almost feel hungover tommorow. i was in the goulston & storrs fire on the waterfront a few years back and i felt mostly okay that day but the next day it kinda hit me. lightheaded, almost dizzy but not, etc.

though, they made us go back to work the next day and then we got evacuated at noon due to a carbon monoxide threat so it's possible the "hangover" was from that. i had to take a final in an advanced programming class that night! it was horrible! no idea how i passed, hehe.

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[info]smacaski
2006-12-08 09:24 pm UTC (link)
Ha ha, and I was just thinking to myself, "After a day like today, I really wish I drank." I'll have to settle for a choco-hangover in addition to the smoke inhalation hangover.

So, the professor bought the ol' "I was in a fire and I'm woozy from the carbon monoxide" excuse, eh? :)

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[info]nme525
2006-12-08 06:45 pm UTC (link)
Glad you're ok. I work at 4CC and we lost power and were evacuated. It was crazy down there.

We were told by one of the firefighters that it was a fire int he basement that caused a transporter to blow up and that sent smoke straight up the ventilation system to most of the floors. He told us that some of the floors remained clear of smoke.

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[info]ron_newman
2006-12-08 07:40 pm UTC (link)
A 'transporter' ? What spaceship were they trying to reach?

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[info]nme525
2006-12-08 08:41 pm UTC (link)
Yeah I'm not smart. I meant transformer.

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[info]rufinia
2006-12-08 08:42 pm UTC (link)
Is it more than meets the eye?

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[info]nme525
2006-12-08 08:44 pm UTC (link)
it is.

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[info]rufinia
2006-12-08 08:45 pm UTC (link)
It's nice to know that some things can be counted on.

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[info]nme525
2006-12-08 08:47 pm UTC (link)
especially in situations like this!

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[info]quirkybook
2006-12-08 08:50 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for the report, and I'm glad to hear that you're okay!

Out of curiousity, which floor did you work on? I'm kind of freaking out now because my cousin worked on the 12th, and no one has been able to get in touch with her...

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[info]smacaski
2006-12-08 09:19 pm UTC (link)
I work on the 10th. I just read that one of the electrical workers down in the basement died, but everyone else made it out okay. Some people are in hospitals with smoke inhalation. Not that it's that comforting, but maybe she's at a hospital getting checked out, and they won't let her use her cell phone.

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dude
[info]ihavemeaning
2006-12-08 11:29 pm UTC (link)
I work there too. I was like, totally traumatized.

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[info]ert
2006-12-10 07:47 pm UTC (link)
It hasn't really hit me until about 15 minutes ago how freakin' scary that was.

I was working on the 3rd floor and one of the first people out, I found it noteworthy how long it took me to go from "Hm, I wonder if this is an actual fire" to "huh, actual fire, wonder if this will take longer than a fire drill before we can go back in the building" to "holy crap, this is really serious."

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[info]derspatchel
2006-12-08 05:24 pm UTC (link)
Whoa. Holy shit. I was riding the Red Line inbound and was stopped at Kendall just, apparently, as this occurred. The lights on the Kendall platform began to flicker and flash and eventually went out, and we stayed on the station for about a minute before heading across the bridge to Charles. Now that I think about it, we probably were the last train across before they suspended service.

I think the Charlie gates automatically opened up, too, once the power went out.

I wasn't in a position to look back across at Cambridge, and I wish I had. At the time when the platform lights went out, I had just thought it was typical MBTA maintenance problems, like a blown fuse or something. All I could think was "I hope the trains run off a different electrical source."

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[info]smacaski
2006-12-08 05:27 pm UTC (link)
There wasn't a lot to see. The smoke was coming from the building basement, and the upper levels of the building are encased in glass windows that don't open, so all the smoke was trapped inside. It looked almost entirely normal, aside from the dozen fire trucks and ambulances outside. From across the street, though, you could see that the lobby was entirely smoked up.

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[info]derspatchel
2006-12-08 05:34 pm UTC (link)
That's surreal, building on fire with no visible smoke coming outside.

I'm glad everybody got out okay.

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[info]coolerq
2006-12-09 09:33 am UTC (link)
If the MBTA is set up in the same way as the MTA (NYC subway), the tracks are all powered from central locations and don't depend on local power. However, the signaling and switching equipment is powered by local power, so one would hope that the switches were already thrown correctly when the power failed.

--Quentin

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[info]sparkgrrl658
2006-12-08 06:00 pm UTC (link)
we were watching this on the news in our kitchen, and actually we could see better out the window than what was on tv. we've been watching out the window for awhile now.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/12/office_building_1.html

there's the story, sorry i don't have time to read the other comments since i'm in a training class right now.

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[info]dmcgettrick
2006-12-08 07:22 pm UTC (link)
one person is reported dead in this mornings fire.

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[info]closetalker11
2006-12-08 07:40 pm UTC (link)
I just read that as well:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/12/office_building.html

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