whiteraven
Diamond Member
Today is the anniversary of one of the largest nightclub fires in the US - I was 16 and lived just a block or so away, both from the club and from the makeshift morgue they created to hold all the dead. I knew and had worked with both the coroner and deputy coroner in projects connected to the city before the fire; although I wasn't there that night, I knew a lot of people who were and it was the single, most intense memory I have from that time.
I had flashbacks for a very long time after - black plastic bags were the worst - and continue to struggle with sirens. I have never had such immediate and bothersome reactions to anything else; with anything more than just a single, brief siren, I'm that kind of anxious where you can feel your heart pounding and your extremities tingling and I always end up in tears.
I still count people in a restaurant or small store to make sure they are not over-capacity. This fire is what prompted the laws about that and I have always been amazed at the flippant disregard businesses have for them. Even in school, shortly after the fire, we had a drill (but we didn't know that it was a drill at the time) and our biology teacher instructed us to clean up our stations before leaving. (I reported her then she locked everyone in a freezer while she lectured us on how disappointed she was in us).
Hard day.
I had flashbacks for a very long time after - black plastic bags were the worst - and continue to struggle with sirens. I have never had such immediate and bothersome reactions to anything else; with anything more than just a single, brief siren, I'm that kind of anxious where you can feel your heart pounding and your extremities tingling and I always end up in tears.
I still count people in a restaurant or small store to make sure they are not over-capacity. This fire is what prompted the laws about that and I have always been amazed at the flippant disregard businesses have for them. Even in school, shortly after the fire, we had a drill (but we didn't know that it was a drill at the time) and our biology teacher instructed us to clean up our stations before leaving. (I reported her then she locked everyone in a freezer while she lectured us on how disappointed she was in us).
Hard day.