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I love what ifs? You know, like ...
What if a murderous maniac has a gun to you and says sleep with your sister or I'll kill both of you?
What if Jesus came to earth as a gay black woman, and demanded you to support the democrats?
You know stuff like that...
So any ways the recent events of hurricanes, tsunamis and 9/11 have turned a lot of our worst nightmares as humans into reality. The "what ifs" have become fact rather then hypothetical. So what if it happened in Greensboro. Better yet, what is Greensboro's "what if?"
Not being near the coast means its rather unlikely for the New Orleans style Hurricane to hit here.
Not really any major buildings to collapse from airplanes running into them.
Tsunami.... I doubt it.
Tornado? Possibly but we're not exactly geographically capable of producing a large one.
Flooding? Again doubtful.
So what is it? What do we have to worry here in the boring-est city in North Carolina. Here's my scenario...
It's 6 AM, light snow is coming down on a beautiful winter morning. The roads are empty other then a few cars. I step out side with a huge robe around me. My pink furry sparkle slippers go crunch, crunch in the snow as I hurriedly run over to pick up my copy of the News and Record in its handy plastic snow condom. I look down the road and see my delivery boy still en-route to other homes in his 83 Chevy Chevette with brown smoke pouring out of it and that noise... kinda a diesel school bus combined with a drowning horse. Yep that noise. As paper boy turns the corner the sound of his ghetto-mobile fades to silence. I take a breath, and smile... I know this is going to be a good day...
Then the ground begins to shake my coffee begins doing that weird Jurassic Park thingy. Then I look up to see a huge commercial airline barely clearing the trees in my yard fly over my house at incredible speeds followed by a sonic boom. Behind it two military fighter planes are almost on its tail. I think to myself there is no way... and I mean no way anyone is going to believe this.
Did I forget to take my medication again?
I stand there dumbfounded for awhile then decide to go back inside and forget about what I just saw.
I walk inside and sit down at the table with my diabetes testing kit and a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts, about to play my own version of Russian roulette when a giant explosion rocks the house. The power goes out, & stuff crashes on the floor. I duck under the table and yell to the kids to stand in front of the table as a human shield. I peak out from the table leg of the table and crawl over to the window. The neighbors are all outside, peering into the sky where a mammoth flame and smoke engulfs the horizon.
It's at this point I knew what had happened.
South Carolina was attacking.... wait no, that's not it.
I ran outside and joined my neighbors in the confusion. Eventually someone figured out to go and turn the radio on in the car. We stood around trying to hear what happened. We turned it 107.5 but Jack Murphy was just talking about how he diarrhea when he was jogging.
Everyone said "Ewww...." and then we snapped out of it and changed the channel. Here's what we heard:
Quote:
N2: We now go to Chopper Bob in the Super Copter 2.
N2: Chopper Bob?
CB: There seems to be a huge crater, extending from wendover avenue to the airport. Fires are ablaze pretty much everywhere in Western Greensboro. Smoke is filling the sky, we can barely see enough to fly. Cars on I-40 have been blown into trees. We can see the oil pipe lines coming into the city still exploding well south of the county.
N2: Can you see any of the plane that hit the oil tanks?
CB: Oh my god.... the engine is stalling... we're going down... mayday, mayday.... (Static)
CB: Oh My God! Bodies are scattered everywhere, burned and charred all over the place (Static)
N2: I'm sorry we are having some technical troubles with Super Copter 2. If your just joining us. As of 5:30AM Oceanic Airlines flight 666 radioed the tower reporting a malfunctioning aircraft and had indicated the need for an emergency landing at Piedmont Triad International airport. Around 6AM the plane was unable to correct its landing approach and crashed in the oil reserves in western Greensboro creating a massive explosion, & subsequent crater the size of Kernersville. Reports of a complete breakdown in all major services continue to pour in. At this time all interstate traffic on I-40 is stopped as a nearly 2 mile stretch of interstate in now a deep blast crater from the initial explosion. Water, & Electricity is unavailable for most of Guilford and surrounding counties. Police & emergency official are unable to reach the flames that continue to rage from the pipelines due to the lack available roads. House after house is catching on fire. The sky continues to fill with black smoke, and visibility is at a minimum. Officials are asking residents to not breath the smoke which could be toxic, to stay inside and block all windows and doors.
In the days that would follow we would learn eleven crew members and 205 passengers died, including thirty people from Greensboro. The bodies were buried in a mass grave along with those who died from toxic fumes, fires, starvation and dehydration from the break down in local services. For weeks citizens would find themselves trapped in their homes without food or water. Greensboro's emergency management team could not even communicate do to power losses and the freeways that where no longer there. When the smoke finally did clear, those who still had a job could not afford the gas that was now nearing 14 dollars a gallon. Many businesses had burned to the ground.
We would later learn the jetliner fuel combined with the billions of gallons of stored oil created a initial explosion close to the force of an atomic bomb. The extended damage would be caused by simple mistakes just as other disasters. A faulty shut off valve on the oil pipeline would fuel the flames for days and increase the damage ten fold.
Those who did survive found themselves homeless, jobless, and foolishly saying "I never thought that could happen here."
So "what if" it happened. What would we do? What if we're not ready?
Update A Few weeks after writing this, London suffered a similar event, when an oil tank caught on fire and subsequently exploded, These where the pictures.
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