Thursday, April 17, 2014

I Know The Sign Said "Drive-Thru" But----

     I live on the north edge of town and my kids & grandkids live on the south edge of town.  Whenever I go to take care of my grandkids, go to the library, pretty much go anywhere in town I take Pierce Street south, which is a busy 3 lane street through the center of town.  On the corner of Route 66 (Amarillo Blvd) and Pierce is a McDonalds.  I used to go through the drive-thru every morning on my way to take care of my grandkids because you can buy a local paper for a quarter at McD's, instead of the normal 75 cent price, and I like to work the two crossword puzzles in the daily paper.
    Well, I have not been buying the paper this week and I sure miss it.  There are numerous McDonalds here but none that I pass by on my way except for this one.  It will be a while before I can get a newspaper there again.  Last week someone ran a red light and a car and a semi carrying a huge load of bales of hay collided. The end result was that the semi of hay pushed a 3rd vehicle completely inside the McDonalds and the cab of the semi itself was buried inside, right  where the counter use to be. 
     Thank goodness no one was killed.  7 people were hospitalized.   Miraculous that no one was killed, considering a Ford Explorer was pushed inside the store, followed by a semi on it's side.  It happened around 10 p.m. on a weeknight so it was not a busy time.  Had it been in summer it would have been tragic. 
     I took this photo on my way home tonight, more than a week after the wreck.  The door to enter the store was just to the right of the two windows, the counter would have been right where the A/C duct is hanging down, the bathrooms right where you see some big bales of hay stacked.  It took crews about 6 hours to get the Explorer and the semi out of the store.  If you want to see videos taken that night by a local news crew then go here: http://www.newschannel10.com/category/281440/truck-crashes-into-mcdonalds

3 comments:

  1. Oh my, that is quite a mess. It is always a little sobering to see something like that happen at a place we go to often.

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  2. Wow. That's awful in so many ways, including the lack of your morning paper.

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  3. A local drug store in Tulsa had a drive thru added when an 80 year old woman hit the accelerator instead of the brake. She went through the front windows of the store and thankfully no one was injured. The reason I remember this incident is because upon hearing the news, my 80 year old mother got in her car and drove to the scene of the accident to prove she could go there without driving into the store.

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