Snow day in October?

Worked out this morning (yay me), got to work, and was getting caught up from being out yesterday. At about 8:20 a gal I work with comes over and mentions there is a gas leak on the street right outside our office. She actually saw it happen, and you could hear the hissing noise from my office. They had started evacuating neighboring buildings. Then we get the page that tells us to leave the building and make our way to the Civic Theatre a couple blocks away and meet there.

So we did. We all gathered together and did our best to get a head count of our office personnel and call people who were out at appointments or coming in late, etc. We were there for about 20 minutes when the police started evacuating us even further away. We walked another few blocks up to the hospital area. A couple of us decided to drop in at the McDonald's across the street for a quick breakfast.

As we're waiting in line for food, we start hearing the stories about the escalating evacuation. Police are herding anyone on the streets into Transpo buses that are leaving the area entirely. After we got our food and left, they immediately shuttled us onto a bus and drove us up to the Athletic Center at Notre Dame.

Our HR manager was at McDonalds with us, and she told us that if we could get a ride home, go ahead and go -- no point in sticking around and waiting because all signs point to it being many hours until we have access to downtown again. Everyone's cars were in the parking garage which was, of course, off limits.

So, Erin called Justin, who was still at my house because he works later on Thursdays (12-10). He came to pick us up at about 10:00 at Notre Dame. I had him drop me off at Ben's school so I could pick up the truck and have a vehicle. So now Ben is stranded, but I'll just pick him up after work. I also decided to go pick up the kids from my mom's house. Got back home, Erin and Justin and a couple other gals from work were here. Justin had to go in to work, but I'm meeting the gals out for lunch in a little bit. I'm also going with Erin and her sister for Erin's wedding dress fitting appointment this evening, and hopefully the garage will be open then and we can get our cars.

Anyway, while we were waiting to be picked up at Notre Dame, we'd been chatting with the HR manager, and she says, "It's like a snow day! Hooray!"


It's a beautiful day for a snow day. Sunny and 66 degrees, and not a snowflake in sight.


Here's a picture of my co-workers evacuating, courtesy of our local CBS affiliate. I don't see myself in this picture, but I'm in that line somewhere. My office is the building in the middle, you can see a little of the "Gibson" sign above the tree. The red brick building in the left background is the building that is currently holding my car hostage.