www.bakersfieldvoice.com

It has been so long since I've written a blog post. I'm back again, but I must say I'm slightly disappointed with the new format. I don't live in the city, so I won't be able to pick up a copy of The Voice. I'll have to deal with reading it online, I suppose. I didn't realize it had been so long, but my original account that I created on The Northwest Voice dates back to 2004, and I created this newer account in 2005. I understand that the economy is crappy right now, so I'll just let it go.

Anyway, back to my blog post.

I'm sure you heard about the gas leak on Wednesday morning. Perhaps you could actually hear it while it was leaking. I sure could, and it wasn't the kind of noise you wanted to hear while you're trying to sleep. It was the biggest news story of the day on every television news station, and some of the radio stations, too. I listened to KUZZ and watched KGET simultaneously to keep up with the latest information. The only news source I didn't hear from immediately, oddly enough, was The Californian. I was shocked that they didn't have a blog post written until 12:13 p.m. -- nine hours after the leak occurred.

I was up all night trying to figure out what was going on. I hadn't gone to bed yet and was screwing around on the Internet. As I was listening to Dierks Bentley sometime before 3 a.m., I heard something oddly loud. I paused the music and ran around the house to find a source, but I didn't find anything. When I opened the door the noise got even louder. I woke my parents up and and had them look around, but we still didn't find anything. They went back to bed, and I went back to my music. The pause between my music had been from 2:47 a.m. to 3:02 a.m., so I believe the crash occurred sometime between 2:45 and 2:50 a.m.

The fact that I didn't have a news source and had no idea what was going on was driving me crazy! I started tweeting on Twitter to calm myself down while Googling for a site that might lead my to an online police scanner. I posted my first tweet at 3:12 a.m. I thought I might give it a rest, but then I saw the hazmat crew pass, told my parents and posted another tweet at 3:17 a.m. (I typed in an ellipsis [...] after "I'm worried," but it didn't show up for some reason.) I was a bit scared and couldn't take it anymore, so I woke my brothers up and told them to turn on the police scanner, because something serious was obviously going on. That's how we first found out it was a gas leak. I saw another hazmat and one CHP drive by while they were listening to the scanner. It's possible that more drove by while I was out of the living room.

Not much else happened after that, but I continued to browse around on the Internet and watch the highway. I tweeted at 4:23 a.m., and KGET had a message scrolling about it. The noise was described as something from a jet...something or another (?). I thought it sounded like traffic going down the highway, except a million times louder. I watched the news and listened to KUZZ from 5 to 7 a.m., which is how I found out that someone had actually crashed into it and caused the whole thing, and that she was drunk. I found out that she was a 30-year-old stripper working for Teaser Pleaser by reading The Californian's blog, but they had to delete that text because the bloggers complained it lacked relevance to the story.

The last tweet I posted that morning was at 8:15 a.m. My family was finally waking up to get ready for their day. When I let the cat out I poked my head out the door and sniffed the air. Surely enough, I could smell the gas drifting through the air. "I smell something funny outside, but I'm not sure if it's gas or something else." My dad sniffed the air and confirmed it was natural gas traveling throughout the air, at least a mile away from its original source.

I had been up all night, so I finally went to bed around 9 a.m. and slept until noon, when my brother woke me up to give me the final details about the whole ordeal. The gas must have been shut off about the same time I was falling asleep. I slept for a few more hours later that evening. All I can say now is that I hope that woman gets what she deserves, because drinking and driving is NOT OK in my book.

I'm sorry it was so long, guys, but I have issues with describing every little detail, which leads to long, boring blog posts. So sorry!!

Robin