Holy Cow! Fire at School!

I have graduate school every Monday and Wednesday through Ashland University. My classes are at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, from 5:00 to 7:40 pm.

About an hour into class this evening, we started to smell something funny - like electrical burning. After a few minutes, we mentioned it to the professor. Right at that moment, there was a loud ZAP and the electricity went out. The smell of burning was getting stronger. We looked out the window (the Wednesday class is on the second floor) and there were a bunch of people standing outside, pointing at the building!

The professor said "Maybe they're having a fire drill?" I said "if that's the case, I'll come back in, but for right now, I'm going outside!" The rest of the class agreed, we filed outside (the hallway was starting to get smoky) and when we got outside, the BUILDING WAS ON FIRE! It was actually the building attached to the building that my class is in, but THE BUILDING WAS ON FIRE! Holy crap! Black smoke was pouring out of the building - I had to shower and wash my coat when I got home because everything smelled like burning wires and wood smoke.

All of the local news stations are carrying the story, but there aren't many details yet. Channel 19 has some pics with the story here. It doesn't looke like anyone was hurt, but they did have to call in neighboring fire departments.

The damage must be pretty bad - I just got a text that they closed campus for at least tomorrow...

Not how I expected to spend my Wednesday evening!