I work in Atlanta, GA for the Teachers Retirement of Georgia. It's a good honorable place to work, as we make sure they the pension system for
teachers works properly and all funds owed and collection go in and out with as few problems as possible.
You might imagine my surprise this morning when I got into work (around 7 A.M. EST) and saw a train full of what appears to be military canisters
sitting idly on the tracks. From the second floor of our underground garage I saw this:
Needless to say I was a bit spooked. How long had these been sitting here? The tracks that run by my building have things shipped on them quite often,
but I hadn't seen any military stuff yet. Doesn't mean it was bad, just odd.
So, I decided to shoot some video with my phone since I didn't know how long the stuff would be there and it was kinda neat to look at:
Video 1
You can hear me comment on the fact that these are just "chillin" next to my building. I could clearly read "CLASS A" explosives on the side of
the containers, but didn't yet know what was inside of them.
I went a little higher for a better look. I got up to the top of the parking garage and took some more video. Now I could see just how many there
were... and, I from my new vantage point I could read what was on the containers.
Video 2
"Rocket Ammnuition Class A Explosive Ammunition" was painted on the top of one of the containers, and I could easily see that they were stacked 16
to a crate, with two crates per car, and there were at least 100 cars...I mean this stretched on for over a 1/4 mile.
At this point I started to get a little concerned, as did the others I work with who saw this, because we realized that no one is guarding this stuff.
I mean, I can understand it something happened and the train was left there overnight and people were watching it. I can't understand how ROCKET
AMMNUNITION is just left laying around in the middle of on of the most populated cities in the US without anyone noticing.
We called DHS, who thought we were joking at first. One of them asked, "How do you know that its rocket ammnuition?"
Jim, a former military man I work with responded, "Well, we're reading the side of the containers. I can go down there any open one up to check if
you want, since there's no one looking at them." That got their attention. We sent them an image via e-mail and shortly thereafter the chopper
arrives...this is about 11:30.
Video 3
The chooper was flying really low, although you can't really tell form the footage. At one point it was so low that I looked right at the pilots face
and motioned as if to say "what the heck is this all about?" The pilot motioned for me to move back, which I did, since, you know, he had a cannon
or something on the side of the chopper. I comment in the video on what Scott, another former military person, said he thinks it might be, but he's
since said he was probably wrong since it looked too big.
I went to the 4th floor of our building around 12:30 to take some more videos.
Video 4
THe people up there were lined against the windows looking down. Still, after over 5 hours, the stuff wasn't moving and the only personal looking
over it was a helicopter.
Around 2:00 they came and got the stuff, I was in a meeting so I didn't see it. When I got back to my desk it was gone.
Needless to say, I'm concerned over the fact that this stuff was just sitting there, maybe overnight, for anyone to grab. Sure, they may have not
know what to do with it, but what's to say that some kid doesn't climb on something he shouldn't and cause a big problem.
-O
[edit on 25-5-2006 by The Big O]
[edit: fixed image url]
[edit on 5/26/2006 by 12m8keall2c]