Like many of you, I'm sure, we have wondered what might happen with the Danville construction going on if there were an emergency. That happened today. A call came on my scanner sometime after 2 p.m. that there was a fire on Route 15 in West Danville. Walden left their station and called for Cabot to cover them, and I heard one of the Walden emergency crew asking if Danville would be able to get there. I didn't hear much more, but just a little while ago Pat Gardner called to find out if I knew what had happened. The Gardners were held up for 58 minutes outside of Danville, and she said she could have understood except emergency vehicles seemed to be held up as well.

Ted Decker on W. Shore Rd. sent this photo of the fire on Route 2 this afternoon. Thanks, Ted for this. That's awfully black smoke - and from the picture, I can't tell what building it would be, but it seems to be at the head of Brown Rd. - that's the Hebert's and Paulsen's cottages on Old Homestead Road in the foreground.

We will be watching the news tonight to find out more about what happened, and it will be interesting to see if there are repercussions about the long delay and if there was a breakdown in the traffic management process or what. It could have been the ambulances were returning empty, I guess, but even so almost an hour delay seems pretty extreme.

I just went to check my mail after I'd logged out of here and found the following message from Francine Perkins (information coordinator on the Danville construction) sent at 3:52 this afternoon:

Hello!

As of about 2:30 pm this afternoon, traffic was/is being held for a major emergency on Route 15. St. Johnsbury dispatch has been in contact with us throughout this emergency to let us know which direction as well as how many emergency vehicles will be passing through the project. This emergency required mutual aid from surrounding area departments so traffic was held until those vehicles traveled through the project.

Moments ago, we were told that another ambulance was due to come through the project and we are anticipating its arrival on the project.

Please pass this information along!

Francine R. Perkins
Public Relations Officer
FRP Enterprises, LLC
802-479-6994