Wow. One heck of a fire in Maquoketa.

Maquoketa, IA, home of the much esteemed Hardrada, had a major fire in the downtown area the other day. Now the firefighters battled brutal cold and did the best they could. This is another reason that fire fighting is likely the toughest profession of all. For pics and further reporting on the story go to www.qctimes.com. It looks like a major deal as it burned down several buildings. Luckily, nobody was seriously injured.

I was actually still up when the fire started but we are far enough away from the downtown for me to hear any sirens. I found out quickly enough Sat. morning. I stayed away from downtown for quite awhile and then ventured there to see the damage. I am not originally from Maquoketa so did not grow up with the several structures lost but I remember some of the businesses in them. I got quite a few good pictures from mid-afternoon into the night since smaller fires were still burning. There was still some smoldering on Sunday. It was interesting to see all the different fire department units and the firefighters from so many different communities and cities. Our community volunteers put in a lot of time giving food and hot coffee to the firefighters and providing places for them to get warmed up. Quite the valiant effort by all involved! Of course the MSM was there whom we had last seen covering Hill and then Obama several weeks ago. They gave some good coverage and we do appreciate the part about the brave Maquoketans blinking back tears and vowing to rebuild, to keep the flag flying etc. A cliche but 'tis true. I think that area will be rebuilt but I am not sure if it will be retail store frontage as before or professional or other rental space.

:hug:

We watched the coverage on the news. Big fire. Sad.

I kind of get the idea of what an incendiary bombing attack might have been like in WWII. I got some rather good pics of this unhappy event. About the only good thing and now it has been snowing on the scene of destruction and this makes it impossible for the clearing away to begin. But it will and the town will go on. It was a more forceful reminder than usual that we cannot escape fate, time, and history.

Thank you very much for sheding light on this. Our Firemen are true heroes and really put themselves on the line everyday. They really needed a politician who could help them. Joe Biden was such a politician. The congressional races are coming up and if we want to help our firefighters and public servants we really need to put a democrat like him in our congressional seats. William Meyers, is running for the fourth congressional district and seems to be head and shoulders over his opponents, hopefully he'll be able to take on Latham. I hate to use such an incident to promote my candidate but everytime I think about it, I think that we need to support our public servents and the only real chance we have is in an election year, thanks for listening.
Ames Vet