I was at my office for eleven hours today and then came home and wrapped up a bit more work that hadn’t gotten done at my desk. Perhaps, given the crankiness I was feeling as I waited for a bus toward home, I can be forgiven for reacting to news of a Metro accident with an eye roll and annoyance.
When N texted me to make sure I hadn’t been on a train, I told her that trains had minor accidents fairly frequently here, so even if I had been on a train I probably would have been alright. Shows what I know.
it's hard to imagine the physics of this train wreck
I waited almost 30 minutes to get an S bus, only to crawl along squished most inappropriately into the backside of a stranger in his forties. After picking up cat food, I was just too tired to wait for another bus. Sitting in the cab, I heard just how bad it was. At that point, four dead, seventy hospitalized.
Despite the internal bitchfest about the horrific commute and my rapidly increasing crabbiness level, the mere act of walking in the door the apartment seemed to deflate me. This was the worst accident in Metro’s history. Six dead. Seventy hospitalized. As the last light of the sunset faded, rescue workers were still looking for survivors and bodies.
I’m sorry now for my mean-spirited initial response. I can’t stop thinking about the hundreds of people who spent hours unsure if their wives and husbands and kids and friends had been on one of the trains- how many of the injured still haven’t been able to contact loved ones. I hope that those who are hurt recover; I hope that those who did not survive have peace tonight. I hope that I can remember not to be such a haughty city dweller that I react callously before I feel compassion. What a sad night.
