just fucking tuesday

Last week, one of the worst plane crashes in American history occurred a few miles from my home. People died. Debris and ash fell in my neighborhood. It felt like just one more disaster in a blur of disasters. I needed to write down what I experienced so that I don't forget. Might as well share.

I walked out the door for the gym less than one minute after the crash. The tip of the ash cloud was visible over my neighbors' houses. I knew something was very wrong and called my wife over to look. But stuff explodes in Louisville all the time. It's just a thing here. I left for the gym.

The ash cloud grew quickly. It was a nice day, and people were out. As I drove, I saw them leaving shops and restaurants to stand on the sidewalk and gawk at the growing dark cloud on the horizon that looked exactly like a scene out of a movie about the end of the world.

I called my wife and asked if I should head back home and scoop so that we could bug out. "Where would we go?" There wouldn't have been time anyway. Not long after, the cloud covered everything and a shelter-in-place order was issued. Every phone alarmed with the incoming emergency alert.

At least it was not a mystery what had happened. Videos immediately showed up on social media. Everyone here knows someone who works for UPS. The crash site is one of the routes around the airport (which is in the middle of the city) that we all take often.

I sheltered at the gym. Called my wife back to make sure that we had remembered to close all the windows and seal off the drafty spots. Called my elderly neighbor—who is blind and has breathing problems—to make sure that she knew what was happening and to stay inside.

After a while, I deemed it safe enough to make the short drive back home. There was no odor in the air, and I wouldn't take any path that could interfere with emergency response. I turned on re-circulation and held my breath. But I wanted to be with my family.

We watched Andy's address. He introduced the representatives of the first responders and government. Most of us call our governor by his first name. Almost everyone here knows someone who knows Andy personally. He has had a lot of experience dealing with crises, and he's good at it.

Stuff explodes in Louisville all the time. It's just a thing here. A chemical plant or two. A pandemic. (Spanish flu; not COVID.) A social justice movement. Anti-immigrant riots. A civil war. Sometimes we hear munitions from Fort Knox, but we don't get a cutesy "It's the sound of freedom!" sign.

It's also a city of bad smells. We're used to being gagged by the stench of piss and death and disinfectant from the mid-town slaughterhouse, all summer, depending on how the wind blows. If there is low rainfall and shifting temperatures, the city stinks with gas from our inadequate sewers.

Some smells are more organic chemistry than organic. Their origins are mysterious, but they are no less common. Maybe it's the acrid smell of the Ohio. (Would you even jump in it if you were on fire?) Another chemical plant. Someone burning trash. Beargrass Creek after a "rain event."

So I don't know if I can smell UPS2976 from here. But maybe. I smell something. Draw a straight line in the direction they were headed, another 4-5 miles, and you will hit Valley of the Drums. Fortunately that was cleaned up years ago. They hit a petroleum recycling plant next to a landfill instead.

Fourteen people died, including one 3 year old. But it could have been much worse. The plane barely missed a popular locals bar. I've never been, but I'm told that UPS employees like to go there after work and that it was packed. The plane clipped a UPS warehouse. Barely missed the Ford plant.

If the plane had been headed north on the same runway, it would have hit an expressway exit at rush hour, a gas station, maybe an amusement park. On the other runway, it would have taken out our biggest interchange, a busy grocery store, part of a neighborhood.

The hypotheticals might not be helpful, except for this: I don't think the emotional valance would be different if the disaster had been worse. The hits just keep coming. Do you even remember the mass shooting at Old National Bank? We just survive and buckle down and wait for the next crisis.

A friend of mine is a school teacher. She is a model of compassion. But it had not occurred to her until she walked into class the next morning that her young students would be upset by this. To adults who read news, a fully loaded plane exploding down the road is just fucking Tuesday.

Her students face hunger and lack basic necessities. The school gives away food and shampoo and clothes. They fear deportation to places that they have never lived. They might grow up to be murdered in their own beds by LMPD for being Black.

While UPS2976 was skidding, flaming, past a landfill, Ford plant, bar, into a petroleum depot, our government was working to deny food, medicine, and due process to children. The cloud of poison ash and human cremains covered my city. My neighbors found the burnt page of a comic book in their yard.

I looked up at the sky, saw that the world was ending, then headed to the gym. Stuff explodes in Louisville all the time. It's just a thing here. I smell something, but that's just fucking Tuesday.

WLKY: "Rest in peace: What we know so far about UPS plane crash victims"

Note: This was originally written as a thread on Bluesky.