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Wednesday, January 07, 2004

In local news

On New Year’s Day our local paper ran the following item:

Police respond to threatening object

STATE COLLEGE-- Police responded to a call about a suspicious object Thursday morning at 445 Waupelani Drive that turned out to be an empty box.  Anyone who thinks an object may pose a threat should call police at 234-7150.

At the time, I suggested to my wife that the police should probably set up a separate line for anyone who thinks an empty box poses a threat, so that they can screen out those calls right there.  (It was New Year’s Eve, after all, and when your blood-alcohol level is over .3, every box looks like a threat.)

OK, so I live in a small college town, and this is what our local news looks like, right?  But then yesterday, we had a fifteen-minute snow squall out of nowhere (it was 2 degrees with the wind chill yesterday morning, minus 13 today), and when it hit Interstate 80 fifteen miles north of us, it created an instant whiteout and a sheet of ice that quickly resulted in a fiery fifty-car pileup that included thirty tractor trailers and has resulted in at least four deaths.  The whole thing is hideous-- it closed a twenty-mile stretch of the interstate and is being called Centre County’s worst accident in history-- and for a while we thought there was no way we were letting Nick take the Greyhound to Illinois.

Greyhound told us that they weren’t going anywhere near that stretch of I-80, though, so off Nick went.  He should arrive in Champaign today.  In the meantime, our thoughts are with all the truckers and travelers who were caught in the terrible pileup.  And some kind of citizens’ award should go to high school student Dan Johnson, who somehow dodged the first jack-knifing tractor trailer, parked his vehicle, and did all he could to pull people from cars and flag down trucks while they still had time to slow down.  (See the full story here.)

Posted by Michael on 01/07 at 04:45 AM
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