On Monday afternoon around 3:30pm, I got off the train and strolled myself back home. Unexpected, I noticed black clouds of smoke building up in the midair and it was getting darker each second. I It was a block away from my house and my heart automatically skipped a beat. It was interesting and horrifying at the same time. I wasnâÂÂt sure where it was coming from at the moment so I ran to my house and dropped everything off on the sofa and opened the window. It was a better view since I am on the second floor of the house. The smoke was very dark, a mixture of dark grey and black. I watch as it swirled up and block out the blue sky. Sirens blast in streets and every minute, a fire truck and police cars stormed by. At that time, I was just hoping that no death occurred from the fire. I decided to take a picture as well so I snapped a couple of pictures from my window view and the fire was coming from the vacant factory in my neighborhood. There were more than 200 fire fighters and it took 16 hours to settle the fire down!
The trains that run in my neighborhood are not underground. So I was wondering whether or not the smoke would block the view of the driver running the train. As expected, the MTA decided to close down all trains running between Broadway Junction all the way to Jamaica. As an alternative, we will need to take the bus and transfer. It didnâÂÂt affect me at that moment because I was at home right on time before the MTA decided to declare this.
After finding out about the fire, I was wondering how the media will respond to this news. Since it is my neighborhood, I searched online to see how different news company reacts. I read different articles from companies like NY1, DNAinfo, myfoxny, wall street journal, nbc and brownstoner. I compared their pictures and itâÂÂs pretty interesting to see the different angles the aimed when snapping pictures of the burning factory. It seemed competitive because I realized that each company posted their story about this fire at different time. Some were faster and some posted slower than the other.
After this incident, it allowed me to visual how journalism works when something actually happens in my own area. It also made me realize how quickly journalists report their story and gather quotes and sources. I regret not going close up to the scene to get a watch of how journalists talk to sources. I could imagine a bunch of people with notebooks, camera and pen in their hands trying to break through the crowd and talk to witnesses and officials. If I actually went, I wonder if I would be one of the sources. Too bad, I guess I missed the chance.