This time the sky really fell
Well, Chicken Little was finally right or so it seemed. The sky was falling in Surfside, Florida. If you are a writer and live in south Florida you must write something about the stunning building collapse, even if you write sci-fi. This article won’t be much on facts. They have been published in every major print media in the nation and recited on every electronic news outlet as well. If somehow you’ve missed them, google is your friend. Look’em up. This article will be the supposings of someone who moved to one year after the building opened for occupancy.
If in fact there is any good news, and this is a stretch, it’s that the building was not tall by the standards of the area. Each builder struggled to find sightlines to the intercoastal waterway or the ocean. As one building blocked some of those lines of previously built buildings the next to come were taller. It is unimaginable to think of such a collapse happening to a 30, 40, 50 story building or higher. Perish the thought.
Another good story but with black crepe fringes is Hurricane Andrew. So ferocious was the storm that an employee of mine, whose wife was very pregnant, went into the bathroom, as all are advised (it has no windows and lots of pipes in the walls for structural integrity). He held a mattress to the door with all his might, his back to the wall, his feet in the middle of the mattress. At the end they were looking at the sky. She went into labor. He tried to hail a helicopter (truth!) and failed, got into their SUV, flattened all four tires. Somehow an ambulance showed up. She lost the baby.