Oh, So That’s Your Hotel On Fire?!
So, after a jaunt about San Francisco and a meal at the ‘Empress of China’ (who apparently was calling us), the group retired back to Palo Alto. Some decided that the night was still young and promptly went out, the sensible remained at the Cardinal. I was settling into a quiet night of packing and sorting through photos when the electricity went out. A snoop outside my room, poured forth the distinctive smell of burning. Typical, I thought, on our last night at the hotel, it decides to burn down. Could it not wait until Sunday night? The weird irony is, that the hotel had just performed a fire drill the Thursday before. Guests got naff ear protectors during the test.
Creeping through the Shining corridors,I met with a couple of PV-ers and the hotel staff. Apparently, some ruffians thought it would be funny to set the transformer, below ground, on fire. Of course, this set off an explosion, the force of which, killed electricity to our block and others around it. There was laughing heard around the time of the explosion. Smoke was billowing up under some PV-ers windows. Nice. I love the smell of chemicals and asbestos on a Saturday night.
With just a skeleton PV crew in the surrounds, we, being complete and utter nerds, decided it would be cool to document it. We hung out with the police officiers until the fumes got too bad. By then the brigade was on the scene and a section of Hamilton Ave to the south-west of the block was closed off. Given that my camera was out of power, I struggled with my mobile cam. Mulley, ever the video nerd, ran for his vid cam. Niall took some pics on his spanking N95. Oh no, the hotel in danger of burning, can you please get out of my frame, kthnxbye.
Power was promised to return on Sunday afternoon. Alas, too late for the majority of PV-ers.
The fire will be televised.
Bollards closed off Hamilton Ave.
Fire Brigade rush to our rescue.
Priorities, priorities. The Christmas Tree needs to run on emergency power, else Christmas is cancelled.
Repair truck the morning after