Archive for the ‘propane’ tag
Youtube is Explosive.
Toronto Propane Explosion
On August 10th, 2008, a major propane plant in Toronto blew itself apart. The explosion was massive, shattering the windows of nearby stores and houses. Some people reported their doors being blown right off their hinges. The explosion was heard up to 30 kilometers away, while a huge column of flame and smoke was visible for miles in the Sunday darkness. Explosions rocked the plant for hours, until it burned itself out. Miraculously not too many people were seriously injured, but at least two people lost their lives. One was a firefighter Bob Keele, who was found unconcious near the fire, and died soon after. The other person is an unknown employee of the plant, who is officially “unaccounted for”.
The explosion happened at 4:00 am.
By 8:00 am, there were videos appearing on Youtube of the explosion.
Cell phone cameras, camcorders, everyone who had a recording device had it pointed at that explosion. And there’s some really amazing footage. There’s high quality footage of explosions from every conceivable angle. Here’s a video of one of the explosions, captured almost perfectly. Some of the footage makes you wonder whether the people are more concerned with getting good footage, or saving their own lives. One video has a person running because of falling debris after an explosion, then turning right back around to keep filming.
Much like everyone else, these eerie videos shot in the Sunday darkness reminded me instantly of one thing; Cloverfield. Suddenly, a documentary using only amateur footage doesn’t seem that unlikely anymore. The director J.J. Abrams had vision, but technology moves too fast, even for him. In today’s world, if some natural disaster struck, nobody would have time to even begin classifying this information. Within hours of it occuring, Youtube would have 500 videos of the event. And that’s not counting the other video sites that aren’t as popular. It would have been discussed, talked about, and been worldwide news before the victims reached the hospitals.
It’s a little scary, how one website can change our perceptions about so many things. War for example, used to be a highly filtered media affair. But now soldiers are taking their own camcorders into warzones, and recording fire fights and skirmishes. Video is a powerful medium, and watching these soldiers face the hell hole that is war every single day is scary. Professional news broadcasts don’t even come close.