San Bruno's Own Public Hell
Thursday I am going out the front door of my office when my cell buzzes in my bag. It's my mom. She sounds panicked. She says something about a huge explosion near her house and she doesn't know what to do and then she has to go. She says she'll be in contact later. I'm puzzled and worried and mention it to my coworker as we head for the train station. I take my seat on the 6:27 train leaving San Francisco and then proceed to text my boyfriend with the little information I have from my mom's scary and cryptic phone call. I don't hear anything from my mom on the way home and I fall asleep on the train, frightened, but lulled by the train's familiar rocking and my own mental self-assurances. As the train pulls up to the San Bruno station, I see a huge plume of black smoke emanating from the west, but still very close by. A man in scrubs waiting to get off the train at the same stop as me says he heard it was a plane crash. Stunned, I exit the train in ...