2/8/07 Raining Fire

We had a bit of excitement in good ol' Knoxville yesterday. A couple of old warehouses caught on fire and burned for an entire day, effectively stopping traffic and raining burning embers down upon my fair city. (You can read the official story in the News-Sentinel here and here and here). The McClung warehouses are (were) just down the street from where I work, and it was actually pretty creepy to watch the ashes drift by. (I thought it was snow at first). The whole city smelled of black smoke, and traffic was backed up forever with people stopping their cars to take pictures. The Barley's taproom that had the brushfire butts up to the back of my building. So lots of excitement all around. Part of me is sad because those were old historical buildings that could have been revitalized into lofts or stores or something, but I also know that they've been talking about renovating those old buildings for about 10 years and nothing was ever done. They just got older and more rundown. So here's hoping that after the rubble gets cleared away, they can build something nice in its place.