The Comet Ping Pong thing

I saw a fake one last week about someone on Twitter bragging about laughing at the Gatlinburg fire victims. The guy's name was "Tobias Beecher."

I got a kick out of that, even though I know the people who posted it are WAY too dumb to know where that name comes from.

 

Art Bell made spare change compared to Alex Jones.

 

Heck, run a Google search on "Jill Stein recount" and hackers.

 

I'm inclined to give Beecher a pass. He went through some rough times.

 

Isn't fake news how you ended up in Iraq?

 

Great fake name deception a couple years ago... you'll know it when you see it:

Workers may have sparked massive apartment complex fire

 

Your link doesn't work unless you have a subscription.

 

Austin Powers' lawyers are drafting a memo

 

Of course, as his followers like to point out, he correctly predicted that Trump would win the election unlike the mainstream media, which I guess somehow means he has credibility?

 

Workers may have sparked massive apartment complex fire
Wind-driven fire destroys 396-apartment Montrose complex
By Claudia Feldman, Benjamin Wermund, and Craig Hlavaty

March 25, 2014 Updated: March 26, 2014 12:53am
A five-alarm, windswept fire that destroyed a $50 million luxury apartment building under construction in Montrose on Tuesday may have been sparked by a welder, a fire department official said.

"There was a report of a couple of guys working on the roof doing welding," said Houston Fire Department Deputy Chief Greg Lewis. "When our units arrived, there was a small fire and construction workers were attempting to put it out. There was sustained wind of 15 to 20 miles an hour, and it was a wind-driven fire."


The noontime fire spewed a black column of smoke that could be seen for miles in the skies around Houston and forced dozens of construction workers to flee the five-story complex. No one was hurt in the blaze, but HFD had to rescue one construction worker trapped on an upstairs balcony seconds before he would have been engulfed in flames.

Adjoining properties, including a historic cemetery, received minor water and fire damage, and some residents of the largely residential, inner-city neighborhood just to the west of downtown, rushed to the scene to check their property.


In the end, the 396-unit complex in the 2400 block of West Dallas, known as the Axis Apartments, was reduced to ashes mere months before it was to open to tenants in June.

High winds a factor

Paul Johnston, chief operating officer for JLB Partners in Dallas, appeared stunned after arriving to survey the remains of the complex his company was finishing.

"This was a first for us, unfortunately," Johnston said, adding that the building was insured.

Ninety construction workers were in the building when the fire started, he said, and the company's priority is "that everyone is safe, and we cooperate with the authorities."

Nearly 200 firefighters and 80 pieces of equipment responded to the fire, which was reported at 12:30 p.m.

HFD Capt. Ruy Lozano said a construction worker was rescued by ladder after he had jumped from the fourth-floor balcony to a balcony on the third.

He was rescued "pretty much seconds before the fire would have overtaken him," Lozano said.

Once the worker was safe, HFD "immediately went into a defensive posture" and began dousing the fire and some of the adjoining housing units, Lozano said. "This was a huge undertaking."

High winds made it difficult to contain the fire, which destroyed the complex and also damaged some vehicles parked nearby.

Lash LaRue said he was installing phone lines on the fifth floor of the building when he heard a loud crash, turned and saw the ceiling collapsing and flames shooting through. He grabbed his tools and rushed out while some other workers tried to fight the flames with fire extinguishers.

"It was wicked," LaRue said.

He said other workers were falling off their ladders, and he heard a crackling noise as the fire began to spread.

"All those months of work and it's just gone in seconds," LaRue said.

Despite reports from a number of workers and witnesses that the flames appeared to have started on the roof, Lozano said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

"In a construction project there are tons of variables that could have caused this fire," Lozano said.

Several workers who evacuated the burning structure said a fire extinguisher was not available on the roof of the building. Some workers left the roof to retrieve one but the fire spread too quickly to return, they said.

 

Was this supposed to be on this thread or the Oakland fire thread?

 

Lash LaRue?