It’s the same drill each time. A fire call on the scanner, a quick check of the maps and you’re off. I go from puttering around the office on 4 cylinders (there’s a lot of paper to be pushed around, right?) to roaring like a turbo-charged, rip-roaring jackal. The situation escalates as I’m weaving in and out of traffic. “Fully engulfed,” “roof collapse,” “mutual aid” – all jargon telling us this is no kitchen fire.
I’m the first on the scene out of the Peoria media. The NBC affiliate arrives a minute later, with the rest of the ragtag media crews showing up 5-10 min later. There’s a lot of smoke and I wonder if I will smell it every time I exhale the next few days. Flames are raging, and I keep circling the scene trying to find some sort of unobstructed angle.
Things are under control by this point. The sky is darkening to a shade reserved for hail and big, jagged lightning. Someone crackles over the scanner with a report of a funnel cloud. I hop into my car and head back to the office, unable to see out of my windshield as the maximum amount of water that can possibly fall out of sky suddenly does, soon peppered by loud, obnoxious hail the size of peas or small marbles.
I’m on edge.