Monday, June 30, 2003
It happened again this weekend.
A dozen people were killed, and dozens more seriously injured at an overcrowded party venue in Chicago. It seemed like the average summer house party...kegs, dancing and hanging out on the porch. Chicago is filled with 3 and 4-story brick apartment buildings with wooden porches like the one that collapsed this weekend, and building inspectors who examined the scene concluded that the ill-fated porch was in fact structurally sound at the time of the collapse.
That can mean one thing: there were far, far too many bodies standing on the structure when it plunged three stories down. What is wrong with people in this city - do they all have to pack like sardines everywhere they party?
Imagining 'accidents' like this always gives me the creeps...being crushed by a crowd, suffocating, falling down, down, down from a high place...sometimes, as this past weekend shows, it happens in real life.
All we can do is breathe a sigh of relief we weren't there.
