Everyone in Worcester knew that building, if not by the address then by the shadow it had cast over downtown longer than anyone could remember. McNamee and Zinkus stared at each other, brows arched, eyes wide. "Engine 1, Engine 6, Engine 12, Engine 13, Ladder 1, Ladder 5, Rescue 1, Car 3." "Striking box 1438, Franklin and Arctic, for a fire at 266 Franklin," the dispatcher deadpanned. McNamee cocked his head toward the radio. Thirteen minutes after six o'clock, McNamee's Expedition-or Car 3, as it is officially known-was on Clark Street, in the northern reaches of the city, Zinkus steering it toward the Greendale Station, when the first tone sounded.
Once his aide, George Zinkus Jr., had wheeled him to all six stations in the district, they would return to Central Station, where dinner, twenty-five pounds of beef, was roasting in the oven. The night of December 3, 1999, was quiet enough for McNamee to tend to his bureaucratic duties, riding shotgun in a Ford Expedition to the far-flung stations, retrieving vacation requests from the rank and file. They had spent their shifts cooking and cleaning and sleeping, interrupted only by sporadic milk runs and false alarms. Late autumn had been a slow stretch for the men working under Mike McNamee, the gray-haired forty-nine-year-old chief of Group II, North End District, Worcester Fire Department. Three tones, at least, offers the chance of action. It doesn't always turn out that way, but three tones, at least, offers the chance of action.
#FLASH NIGHTCLUB ROOF DECK COLLAPSE WINDOWS#
Three tones means blazing orange heat, black smoke, and poison gas sirens and lights and steam and great torrents of water men ripping into walls with axes and long metal spears, smashing windows and cutting shingles from roofs, teetering on ladders a hundred feet long. Three tones means a reported structure fire, a house or a condo or a strip mall already blowing smoke into the sky. Dispatch sends two engines and one ladder truck for those, picking whichever units are available and close.Įven rarer is three tones. Two tones is more serious, perhaps a fire alarm ringing somewhere, probably triggered by nothing more than a stray wisp of cigarette smoke or a burp of electrical current jiggling a circuit. Sometimes, maybe every fifth time, a second tone will follow the first. One tone signals a medical run or some minor emergency, like going out to stabilize a car-crash victim or a coronary case until an ambulance arrives, breaking a toddler out of a locked-up Taurus, or squirting water on a flaming car. "Engine 1," the dispatcher might say-or "Engine 8" or "Ladder 5," but only one truck-before reciting an address and a task. When it goes off, firefighters freeze and listen for the sound that comes next.
It's not so much a bell, really, as an electronic horn, short and shrill. This article originally appeared in July '00 issue of Esquire.
0 kommentar(er)
