I hope all is well with you!  I just survived my 3rd explosion and lived to tell about it.  The 3rd one happened Monday at 11am. I stayed home from the downtown office because my kidneys were acting up again and my feet refused to fit inside any of my shoes, not even my clown shoes.

    I was lounging about with feet propped up, watching a Christmas special on TV (yes I know it is April, but you have to understand our local cable company...)  when I heard this crowd of folks come running down my street talking and yelling and taking refuge in the yard below.  My tiny island isn't the kind of place for a riot, but it sure didn't sound good. I sat up, trying to look out past the mango tree to see what was happening and suddenly there was this loud KER-BANG followed by screams from below.

    I grabbed my binoculars and waddled out to the balcony and I could see the crowd below, most with cell phones tucked to their ears, talking away. Someone said a truck blew at the gas station.  I was thinking it was the gas station a mile from me, and I thought UT OH.  That is at the main intersection that connects the south shore with the north shore.

    Then I happened to look westward (to my left) and to my horror, there was this huge Hiroshima type black cloud hovering about three hundred feet away!  It was huge, dark and ugly. I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture. Then I hobbled down the driveway barefoot and down the road towards the marina. It also has a gas station for filling up boats.

    There was a 1,000 gallon gas tanker shooting flames 100 feet up.  I dodged the speeding fire trucks and began snapping pics when my camera battery died.

    I hobbled back home, narrowly dodging the departing ambulance, and made my way up the hill, walking  very duck like, and sat down to catch my breath.  Now my feet were bright red with bulging ankles. . I changed out the camera battery and noticed the TV, was now a blank screen, since the cables apparently melted  in the fire.  I put the old camera battery on  to charge when POOF, the electricity went out.

    I hobbled back down the hill, now it's been well over a half hour since the explosion, and the fire is still shooting heavenward and the firemen are standing around scratching their heads.  They forgot to bring chemicals and they couldn't get their ocean pumps running and this huge fire hose lay deflated, snaking down the street.

    I wandered over to the marina and there was a crowd of firemen around the ocean water pump, trying to coax it to life. A passerby, who happened to be a retired Navy fire fighter, jumped into the middle, doing this and that and suddenly the pump roared to life. I think the fire had been going almost an hour now.

    I continued to snap a few pictures of the smoke and tried to stay out of the way.  Then I decided being close to the water was not good, as if we had more explosions from the surrounding propane tanks servicing the restaurants, we could all be thrown into the sea.

    By now, a huge crowd had come to watch in horror, as we all prayed that the seaside mall and marina somehow survive. I guess it's not a mall by American standards.  But shops, bras, restaurants, and yacht companies line a row of West Indian buildings down the shore, banked by a large marina full of boats.  Several boats near the fire, had the good sense to sail on out of harm's way, while other boat owners doused theirs in water.  At least one building was already on fire and I didn't dare get any closer to see what else. The thick black smoke was now thousands of feet high and covering most of the harbor, it was like an eclipse as the sun slowly faded from view.

    I waddled back home and put up a web site (via laptop battery and very slow wireless connection) with a slide show running  my pictures. I emailed some folsk around the island incase they happened to check their email to go see pics of the fire. Later in the day, after the fire was out, I went and got pictures of the devastation. Miraculously, only one person was injured, the driver of the truck who most unfortunately will forever wish he hadn't been so careless.

    He arrived at the gas station, hooked up the gas hose and pump, then wandered off to buy water to drink.  Upon his return and much to his eternal horror, the coupling had come loose at the back of the truck and was spraying gasoline across the hot exhaust of the truck. He or somebody put out the word to run for your life and that was the crowd that came rushing down to my yard earlier. Meanwhile, a small fire erupted under the truck, heated up the tanker and KER-BANG.It was so powerful, it shook my apartment building.

    The driver went to the hospital and is expected to survive his horrendous burns. The neighborhood is a bit jittery, just six weeks ago, also at 11am in the morning, Pussers Restaurant (100 feet from me) blew up their 2nd floor kitchen and that set off a huge fire destroying their kitchen and damaging surrounding businesses.  The fire department was very late to that one and also had trouble with hooking up their pumps. One chef was sent to the hospital.  Fortunately, that fire was fought by visiting firemen who happened to be anchored on a rented yacht in the harbor and got the blaze almost completely out before the fire trucks arrived. I am so grateful my apartment is built out of solid concrete and not wood. On my balcony, I do have a water spigot and hose hooked up, mainly for watering my plants but now I find myself rehearsing for a fire drill lately.

    The third explosion was my own human error about 7 years ago. I moved into my apartment and it came with squatters I had to evict, namely bugs. I scrubbed and cleaned and still I had bugs. So I bought a bug bomb.  I got up early, closed all 12 of my windows and 8 of my hurricane shutters (the other 4 windows facing the balcony are glass jalousie type and don't have shutters. ) I slid the sliding doors closed.  I set the bug bomb off in the kitchen and planned to run for the door and go out and work for 14 hours while the bomb did it's magic.

    Halfway to the door, I heard this loud KER BOOM which picked me up off my feet and sent me flying across the living room, where I crash landed sideways, into the chair. My ears were ringing and I sat there with that what-in-the-hell look on my face, my eye glasses, dangling from one ear,  as several of the jalousie windows,  tinkled, shattered and crashed onto the terrazzo floor.  I noticed the oven door was wide open and a  little black cloud wafted briefly, then dispersed above the stove.  My white kitchen tile and cabinets were now a charcoal gray. . The former tenant told me there wasn't a pilot light and I believed her. What she meant was, there isn't a pilot light for the stove top, you have to light that by hand, but there IS a pilot light in the oven for baking. Also, the darkened bug bomb can read in teeny tiny print HIGHLY FLAMABLE, boy I sure wish they had printed that larger...

    I stumbled across the room, opened up the sliding doors, surveyed the broken window slats and wondered why no one had come to see what happened.

    Ironically, the other 4 apartments were empty as was the house next door.  I guess a neighbor somewhere called the cops, because a cop car slowly drove by, but didn't stop.

    I swept up the glass, composed myself and went to work. Over the weekend I learned the fine art of installing jalousie window slats. I had bought the wrong size because the right size wasn't in stock. I use to make stained glass windows, so I drew upon that experience to cut new slats and install them.

    By the way, I haven't had a single bug since.

    But, all in all, I am glad no one has been killed and 3 explosions are enough to last a life time, so hopefully, I can live out my remaining days, bomb free.

    See 100+ pictures of the explosion and fire at: