Austin Joe

On a sunny clear blue February 18th, a fire broke out suddenly at a house about a mile from mine around 9:15 in the morning. 30 minutes later a small plane took off from the Georgetown Municipal Airport and headed due southwest. The light plane got lower and lower as it approached the Arboretum area just a few miles south of my house. It crossed the 183 freeway and slammed into the Echelon Building, which houses several federal offices including an IRS site. The plane was probably full of jet fuel because it impacted on the rocky landscaping just outside the first floor but the plane exploded into the first floor and caught the other seven stories on fire. People began running out of the building and an Iraqi vet that works at a glass place driving by at the time stopped and helped five people get out of the smoke filled second floor with a ladder from his truck. In the end 13 were injured, two seriously, and one federal employee did not make it. Since a national news story was going on Austin became the focus of the country for the day. The freeways slammed shut with traffic and on-lookers. The news websites lit up and of course everyone here at work started talking about it. Things took an even more strange turn when it was found out that he was deliberately hitting the IRS and that office because he had posted a 'manifesto' online that discussed his long painful history with the IRS. Brett got a hold of it on a specific website and sent it to the team then about 10 mins later we could no longer into the link...as if it was shut down by the government. Still, I read the entire thing and had to admit that I agreed with most of his tirade. What he did to make his point was completely crazy but he wrote that people only seem to notice a body count (true!) and he felt like he had to do something dramatic to make the point. Lee Humphries said that he agreed with what he said too but now anyone who has that viewpoint might be looked at as complete cook like 'the guy that flew a plane into the office building' which I also agree with. Unfortunately for most of the issues he was railing against there is no easy solution and it may very well take some sort of 'revolution' to overturn the problems but some other crackpots may view this as the new standard to get their point across and in the divided us and them states of America this kind of crap may become more prevalent. I drove by the building on the way home and saw it from the ramp going from 183 to MoPac. Later that night, after seeing Rich and the Obits at Momo's I drove back by it again so that I could go slower and take a longer look. Luckily more people didn't die than could have.