Jamaica Plain latebreaking news: Mercury in Retrograde! Ambulance explodes and roof collapses.
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
Porter Street home falls under the weight of the snow and ice.
I’m not a huge fan of Boston winters. Well let’s be fair – I loathe winter in Boston. My house is something like 140 years old and although I’ve got it in pretty darn good condition, all the snow and rain and sleet and wind make me nervous. I lay awake on my second floor during these storms imagining what the noises are as my house battles Mother Nature. This particular season has been quite harsh in case you have been at the beach for the last several months and unaware. Yesterday was the culmination of a perfect storm of sorts. After having been pummeled repeatedly, one storm after another Jamaica Plainers shoveled out fresh rabbit runs in the sidewalks and sat down to rest their backs and watch their basements flood from the melting snow and rain that had no where to go and then…KABOOM! An ambulance blows up on the Jamaicaway!
Oxygen canisters blow up while firemen extinguish blaze.
Patch summed it up pretty well:
A Cataldo ambulance caught fire and, while fire crews doused the flames, an oxygen canister exploded in the vehicle.
The incident took place around 12:18 pm Wednesday, according to Steve MacDonald, Fire Department spokesman.
No one was hurt, but two firefighters went to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to get their hearing checked for possible damage from the loud explosion, MacDonald said.
The two paramedics in the ambulance escaped safely. No patient was in the ambulance at the time.
Fire crews from Jamaica Plain and Egleston Square arrived and, knowing the danger of an oxygen tank explosion, stayed well back and watered down the burning ambulance, according to MacDonald.
The danger wasn’t just from the possibility of explosion, but also from the intensification of the fire the addition of oxygen can cause.
“When an oxygen tank explodes, it puts pure oxygen into a fire,” he said.
When the tank exploded, it sent the ambulance’s light bar flying into a snow bank and caused shrapnel to scatter, mostly within the ambulance.
There is a photo of the exploded shell of the oxygen tank on the Fire Department’s Twitter photo account.
The ambulance has been towed away.
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Wasn’t enough excitement for you? Just a block from my home a house succumbed to the weight of the snow and ice on it’s roof. Admittedly, this house was being renovated by a local developer and was quite likely in very rough shape anyway – but thanks to the Universe for making sure no one was inside. The articles on the web seem to say the biggest concerns were regarding the utility connections to the house. My neighborhood is very dense – an explosion would have been catastrophic. Here’s the Patch article:
A vacant Porter Street house under renovation collapsed last night under the weight of heavy snow, leaving only the facade standing.
No one was injured, but the Fire Department evacuated neighbors from the house next door, said spokesman Steve MacDonald. They are staying with friends and family.
Firefighters were called at 1:37 am and soon determined no one was living there.
Ongoing concerns as of Thursday morning included the gas lines into the wrecked house. Utility crews were digging up the street to get to the lines to turn them off, MacDonald said. He said the street would likely be closed all day.
The city’s Inspectional Services Department is on scene. The front of the building will likely be torn down, MacDonald said.
Roofs have been buckling all over Massachusetts as a result of the heavy snow fall. MacDonald said flat roofs are in the most danger, though he cautioned home and business owners to get professionals to do the clearing because of hazards like hidden skylights and inability to tell where the roof edge is.
According to scanner traffic, the Fire Department is monitoring a nearby building at Germania and Brookside that looks like it may also come down.
