News Weird News Compilation

[nsaspook]

https://www.tomshardware.com/softwa...lopment-video-stream#xenforo-comments-3855203

 

[Astronuc]

Giant sinkholes in a South Dakota neighborhood make families fear for their safety
https://apnews.com/article/south-dakota-sinkholes-lawsuit-219c289c9c656d1382cd444b8b54b687

Stuart and Tonya Junker loved their quiet neighborhood near South Dakota’s Black Hills — until the earth began collapsing around them, leaving them wondering if their home could tumble into a gaping hole.

They blame the state for selling land that became the Hideaway Hills subdivision despite knowing it was perched above an old mine. Since the sinkholes began opening up, they and about 150 of their neighbors sued the state for $45 million to cover the value of their homes and legal costs.

Sinkholes are fairly common, due to collapsed caves, old mines or dissolving material, but the circumstances in South Dakota stand out, said Paul Santi, a professor of geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. The combination of such large sinkholes endangering so many homes makes the Hideaway Hills situation one to remember.

Crews built Hideaway Hills, located a few miles northwest of Rapid City, from 2002 to 2004 in an area previously owned by the state where the mineral gypsum was mined for use at a nearby state-owned cement plant.

In court documents, the state traced the area’s mining history to the 1900s, noting a company that mined underground and on the surface before 1930. Beginning in 1986, the state-owned cement plant mined for several years.

The state claimed it wasn’t liable for damages related to the underground mine collapse because the cement plant didn’t mine underground and the mine would have collapsed regardless of the plant’s activities. Around 1994, a horse farmer bought the land and then later sold the property to a developer who encountered a deep hole, the state said in documents.

In 2000, the South Dakota Legislature approved the sale of the state cement plant. A voter-approved trust fund created from proceeds of the sale stands at over $371 million.

Meanwhile, on the Atlantic Coast in the Outer Banks, North Carolina: Two houses in Rodanthe, North Carolina collapse on same day; 4th to collapse in 2024
https://news.yahoo.com/two-houses-rodanthe-north-carolina-214007696.html

Rising sea levels and beach erosion are factors + the fact that people build houses in vulnerable locations susceptible to flooding, tides, storm surge, . . . .

 

[Hornbein]

I've been to the Outer Banks. Most of it is just a sandbar. The trees were cut down long ago and didn't come back.

https://foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Blegen-2004_Senter-Jim.pdf

The man who traveled through Greenland and Patagonia was shocked by what he saw on Hatteras Island. At Cape Hatteras, vast piles of sand had been cut loose from their binding mat of vegetation. Like waves of water on the ocean, these sand waves, or live dunes, as the island’s inhabitants called them, moved across the island, burying the remnants of the maritime forest and everything else that stood before them. As the dunes moved on,ghost forests were exposed, the dead wood left bleaching in the sun and rain. Spears contrasted the desolation of 1890 to past forest riches: Fifty years ago Hatteras Island, from inlet to inlet, a distance of over forty miles, was almost completely covered with a prodigious growth of trees, among which live-oak and cedar were chief insize and number. Growing everywhere in this forest were grape-vines of such great length and extent that the boys of that day (the white-haired men of this) were in the habit of climbing into the tree-tops and crawling from tree to tree, often for a distance of over one-hundred yards, on the webs the vines had woven.

When Spears looked at the subsistence economy of the Outer Banks, he did not see a way of life finely tuned to the landscape it existed in. He saw laziness and indolence and condemned it. The Bankers, he claimed, “are a contented race. . . .[T]he islander . . . takes the greater part of a week to accomplish what he might do if he had to, in twelve hours. . . . If his attention is by any chance called to the sand-wave,he languidly says that it won’t reach the Sound in his time. . . .”

In Spears’s eyes, the islanders’ desire for the things that money could buy, and their unwillingness to work hard, led them to unwisely harvest trees for firewood and boat building. Spears saw the desolation of Hatteras Island as a morality tale: “Thoughtless greed destroyed the protecting oaks and cedars, and now the desolating sand wave is upon the hallowed spot [the Kinnakeet cemetery].” It was this destruction, he believed, that turned the live dunes loose to wander across the island,with dire consequences for the island’s human community. “Powerless against this tidal wave of sand they must flee away and hide themselves from its fury in a part of the island below the cape, where stunted groves may yet protect them in the years to come; or to wander Ishmael-like on the mainland.”

 

[berkeman]

Not so much Weird News, more like very funny...

A California toddler's first school photos are going viral for the funniest reason.

Mom Keishaun Anderson shared her 2-year-old son's photos in a post on the social platform X, formerly called Twitter, where it's quickly gone viral with over 17 million views.

"(Y'all) my son took his first school pictures," Anderson wrote in the caption, alongside four snapshots of her son Arris with his black hoodie up, looking thoroughly displeased with the cherished rite of passage that is Picture Day.

Anderson told "Good Morning America" Arris, who she described as "super outgoing," is usually a smiley and photogenic kid who loves attending preschool, where he's in his first year.

When she went to pick up her son at school after the photos were taken on Sept. 10, Anderson said the teacher was waiting for her with the photo printout.

"She had a paper in her hand and she just kind of held it close to her and started laughing," Anderson recalled. "And I was like, Wait, what's wrong? And when she handed me the pictures, I was lost for words."

https://abc7news.com/post/mom-shares-sons-hilarious-1st-school-photos-family-memory-us/15325017/

 

[OmCheeto]

Not so much Weird News, more like very funny...

View attachment 351477

View attachment 351478



https://abc7news.com/post/mom-shares-sons-hilarious-1st-school-photos-family-memory-us/15325017/

I must be old. Back when I was his age, I wouldn't be shipped off to school for another 4 years. I can totally relate to the expression on his face.

 

[nsaspook]

Los Angeles Bus HIJACKED, Driver Rescued After Being Taken Hostage​

I've seen this movie.

 

[jack action]

Not weird but the cameraman really makes it funny:

​

 

[Astronuc]

Banning Alcohol at Australian Bank Would Be Difficult, CEO Says
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/anz-elliott-says-alcohol-ban-034504938.html

(Bloomberg) -- ANZ Group Holdings Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Shayne Elliott said an alcohol ban would be “difficult to implement” as the bank works to restore an embattled reputation following a series of scandals in its trading arm.

While Australia’s fourth-largest lender hasn’t ruled out imposing such a policy after complaints of inebriated staff on the trading floor, it wouldn’t be easy to do so and maintain, . . .

Elliott said he’s “not encouraging the use of alcohol,” but prohibiting it would be complicated by the fact that “most of our people are in the business of dealing with customers, are going to events and lunches and all sorts of things.”

Whatever happened to 'no drinking alcohol on the job'?! Fitness-for-duty.

 

[Astronuc]

Hidden runway bomb explodes just after plane takes off​

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy430j48kjyo

A bomb, probably dropped in World War Two, exploded at an airport, around one minute after a passenger plane passed the site.

No one was injured at Miyazaki Airport, in south west Japan, . . . .

and a video camera recorded the explosion. I wonder if the vibration from the engines dueing take-off set of the bomb. It was a 500 lb bomb.

https://news.yahoo.com/autos/500-pound-world-war-ii-160500360.html

https://news.yahoo.com/news/us-bomb-world-war-ii-103352124.html

Imagine if a plane taxied over that spot when it exploded.

 

[Ibix]

Apparently Britain is going to be destroyed by the weather today:

There's a glitch in the data pipeline somewhere apparently which is giving stupid wind speeds that are then (somewhat conservatively) classified as "hurricane force", presumably because there's no higher category.

 

[DrGreg]

Apparently Britain is going to be destroyed by the weather today:
View attachment 352038
There's a glitch in the data pipeline somewhere apparently which is giving stupid wind speeds that are then (somewhat conservatively) classified as "hurricane force", presumably because there's no higher category.

At least the website is now warning us not to believe it:

 

[nsaspook]

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/redbox-vending-machine-kiosk-dvd-movies-4e285ee8
Bankruptcy Took Down the Redbox Machine. If Only Someone Could Take Them Away.
The DVD vending machine pioneer is out of business, sticking Walgreens, Walmart and other merchants with 24,000 abandoned big red machines
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...only-someone-could-take-them-away/ar-AA1s1XTc
Want a Redbox?

 

[Hornbein]

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/redbox-vending-machine-kiosk-dvd-movies-4e285ee8
Bankruptcy Took Down the Redbox Machine. If Only Someone Could Take Them Away.
The DVD vending machine pioneer is out of business, sticking Walgreens, Walmart and other merchants with 24,000 abandoned big red machines
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...only-someone-could-take-them-away/ar-AA1s1XTc
Want a Redbox?
View attachment 352057

Airports sometimes get stuck with abandoned airplanes. Big ones.

 

[Swamp Thing]

Want a Redbox?

This is the kind of opportunity that some DIY tech YouTuber could take up. Buy up as many as you can afford and make a parallel computing cluster from their processors... Or something. The thing is to create an appealing story arc that also educates about some technical concepts and attracts lots of views.

 

[Tom.G]

This is the kind of opportunity that some DIY tech YouTuber could take up. Buy up as many as you can afford and make a parallel computing cluster from their processors... Or something. The thing is to create an appealing story arc that also educates about some technical concepts and attracts lots of views.

There are probably some on this site that could readily do that, but...
they know better!

 

[nsaspook]

You can't even trust screen printed bags today.

 

[nsaspook]

Spoiler

https://www.kptv.com/2024/10/11/oregon-voter-pamphlet-trolls-voters-with-rick-roll/

 

[Arjan82]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ses-after-body-falls-from-hearse-into-traffic

"
A funeral home in Poland has apologised after a body that it was transporting fell out of a hearse and into traffic.
"

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/20...-vhs-limited-edition-collectible-release-date
Alien: Romulus is getting a VHS release
A limited edition, “fully functioning VHS tape” version of Alien: Romulus will be available in December.

I want a LaserDisc version.

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.boston25news.com/news/l...ai-school-project/FLHKVXSQPRDLZD7TTMWCRNI54I/
Parents of Hingham student sue school district after son disciplined for using AI on school project

HINGHAM, Mass. — The parents of a Hingham High School senior disciplined by school officials for using artificial intelligence on his social studies project are now suing the school district claiming that the boy’s civil rights were violated.

Dale and Jennifer Harris of Hingham claim in their lawsuit that their son, identified only as “RNH” in court paperwork, “will suffer irreparable harm that is imminent” after his teachers disciplined him and another classmate for using AI on their school project.

“He’s been accused of cheating and it wasn’t cheating, there was no rule in the handbook against AI,” said Jennifer Harris, the student’s mother.


The couple is also asking the court to order school officials to change their son’s final grade from a “D” to a “B,” to “cease and desist” from barring him from being inducted into the National Honor Society, and “to cease and desist from characterizing the use of artificial intelligence” by their son as “cheating,” the lawsuit states.

A "D" was generous.

 

[Astronuc]

Artisan cheese seller in a pickle after thieves made off with massive cheddar haul
https://apnews.com/article/cheddar-...s-yard-dairy-e482c4ea63305493797c75eb103221e7

LONDON (AP) — Thieves with a nose for fine cheese have pulled off a massive cheddar ripoff in London.

Neal’s Yard Dairy said a con artist posing as a wholesale distributor for a major French retailer had made off with 22 metric tons (48,488 pounds) of award-winning cheddar worth 300,000 British pounds ($390,000) before the company realized it had been scammed and reported the theft on Monday.

“The high monetary value of these cheeses likely made them a particular target for the thieves,” Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor, wholesaler, and retailer of British artisanal cheese, said in a statement.

Detectives at Scotland Yard and international authorities are searching for the culprits.

Nearly 1,000 wheels of cloth-wrapped cheese from three makers have gone missing: Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar, and Pitchfork cheddar.

The dairy sells a wedge of Hafod cheddar for 12.90 pounds ($16.70) for 270 grams (9.5 ounces).

 

[Astronuc]

Update on the cheddar heist - 'Grate cheese robbery': Man arrested after 24 tons of cheddar totaling $390,000 is stolen in London
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/...-tons-cheddar-totaling-390000-stol-rcna178224

Three cheeses from three different suppliers were stolen: Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar and Pitchfork cheddar. Neal's Yard Dairy said that "despite the significant financial blow," it has paid each of its artisan cheesemakers in full for its products.

Tom Calver of Westcombe said in a video on Instagram that "it was a hoax — it was theft, it was fraud." Behind him were rows of empty shelves in the dairy, showcasing how much cheese was taken.

Another cheesemaker, Trethowan Brothers, which supplied the Pitchfork cheddar, said Neal's Yard Dairy “fully (and swiftly) paid” it, despite the theft.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg57yr2dqd2o

 

[nsaspook]

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/30/r...s-in-car-buttons-are-an-anomaly/?guccounter=1
Rivian’s chief software officer says in-car buttons are ‘an anomaly’

The trend of big touchscreens in cars has left many yearning for the not-so-distant days when most user interactions happened with physical buttons. But Rivian’s chief software officer Wassym Bensaid believes using buttons in a car is an “anomaly.”

“It’s a bug. It’s not a feature,” Bensaid said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most voice assistants are just broken.”

 

[Tom.G]

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/30/r...s-in-car-buttons-are-an-anomaly/?guccounter=1
Rivian’s chief software officer says in-car buttons are ‘an anomaly’

By Voice??
Uh yea, sure.

Just try an emergency maneuver to avoid a sudden hazard in the road by talking about it. By the time you get the second word of instruction out of your mouth you are already hamburger splattered on that obstruction.

Oh, and don't forget the mental processing time to create the word(s). That is processing time better spent in action and in a real emergency, many people are initially speechless; then add the time to inhale so you can speak.

Oh, well; “The best-laid plans of mice and men oft’ go awry.” (famous line from a poem by Robert Burns)

Cheers,Tom

p.s. Thanks for the 'heads-up' about what car Not to buy.

 

[Swamp Thing]

I think he means interacting with the AC, sound system etc and not the actual driving.

 

[Tom.G]

Similiar problem, using mental processing power versus so-called 'muscle memory' and tactile feedback to find the knob or pushbutton.

But the tactile feedback is a necessary ingredient. Unfortunately that is missing on the touch-screen interfaces.

 

[jack action]

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/30/r...s-in-car-buttons-are-an-anomaly/?guccounter=1
Rivian’s chief software officer says in-car buttons are ‘an anomaly’

This is a weird approach.

If you focus your efforts on using AI for the "simpler task" of a fully self-driving car where you enter the car destination and have nothing else to do until arrival, you have all the time and attention in the world to push buttons. If you are hungry, it is easy to find your new destination - whether looking on your phone or doing a poll with all the passengers - and ask the AI to modify its destination. With the trend right now, modifying your car destination would probably even be with an app on your phone - with buttons or speech-to-text.

If you are still driving, having a "discussion" with AI about its suggestions for nearby restaurants will necessarily take a lot of your attention that you are not putting on the road.

 

[nsaspook]

I think he means interacting with the AC, sound system etc and not the actual driving.

And the car completely freaks out from voice control.

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/05/schneider_electric_cybersecurity_incident/
Schneider Electric ransomware crew demands $125k paid in baguettes

Schneider Electric confirmed that it is investigating a breach as a ransomware group Hellcat claims to have stolen more than 40 GB of compressed data — and demanded the French multinational energy management company pay $125,000 in baguettes or else see its sensitive customer and operational information leaked.

And yes, you read that right: payment in baguettes. As in bread.

Like, lay some bread on me man.

 

[Arjan82]

California men use bear costume to pull off bizarre insurance fraud plot​

https://krcrtv.com/news/local/fake-...n-attempt-bizarre-stunt-for-insurance-payouts

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (KRCR) — Four Los Angeles men have been charged with fraud after claiming a bear caused damage to their luxury vehicles, but they were actually using a bear costume to fake the attacks for insurance payouts.

 

[nsaspook]

 

[nsaspook]

California men use bear costume to pull off bizarre insurance fraud plot​

https://krcrtv.com/news/local/fake-...n-attempt-bizarre-stunt-for-insurance-payouts

Got suspicious when the bear checked its iPhone.

 

[collinsmark]

While this news story does involve the satirical, online news magazine, "The Onion," the actual news story itself is not satire.

Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones’ Infowars at auction with Sandy Hook families’ backing​

The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.​

​

The purchase turns over Jones’ company, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humor website that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody. Within hours of the sale’s announcement Thursday, Infowars’ website was down and Jones was broadcasting from what he said was a new studio location.​

​

Source (Associated Press): https://apnews.com/article/onion-buys-infowars-alex-jones-6496f198d141c991087dcd937b3588e9

 

[nsaspook]

While this news story does involve the satirical, online news magazine, "The Onion," the actual news story itself is not satire.

Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones’ Infowars at auction with Sandy Hook families’ backing​

View attachment 353504

The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.​

​

The purchase turns over Jones’ company, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humor website that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody. Within hours of the sale’s announcement Thursday, Infowars’ website was down and Jones was broadcasting from what he said was a new studio location.​

​

Source (Associated Press): https://apnews.com/article/onion-buys-infowars-alex-jones-6496f198d141c991087dcd937b3588e9

https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/

Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’​

What’s next for InfoWars remains a live issue. The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.
...
No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.

 

[Arjan82]

Got suspicious when the bear checked its iPhone.

I think they just compared damage and found it to be 'rather mild' for a bear:

With pictures.
https://www.wfsb.com/2024/07/26/black-bear-cub-destroy-car-connecticut-after-getting-trapped-inside/

View attachment 348975View attachment 348976View attachment 348977

 

[berkeman]

First it was Snakes on a Plane, now this!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hamsters-loose-tap-airlines-plane-portugal/

A Portuguese airline was forced to ground one of its passenger planes last week after discovering that 132 hamsters had escaped from cages in the cargo hold and roamed free throughout the aircraft, according to an aviation news website in the country.

A TAP airlines Airbus A321neo that flew from Lisbon to the Azores island of Ponta Delgada on Nov. 13 was taken out of service after its arrival and for four days as ground crew members scoured the plane for the rodents, according to the Aviação TV news website.

Reports by multiple Portuguese news outlets cited anonymous sources as saying baggage handlers had first noticed damaged cages after the plane landed, and then saw the hamsters running amok in the cargo hold.

 

[Borg]

I hate flying economy.

 

[mfb]

Bear drops on hunter, killing him.
Drop bears are real!


... if you shoot bears in trees while standing under them.

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.livescience.com/health/...cannabis-kills-2-in-new-york-in-unusual-cases
Bat poop used to grow cannabis kills 2 in New York in unusual cases

Both men, based in Rochester, shared a love of "Mary Jane" and cultivated their own cannabis plants for personal use. They each developed a condition called histoplasmosis after breathing in spores of a harmful fungus known as Histoplasma capsulatum from bat poop, or guano.


The first man, who was 59-years-old, had purchased guano online to use as fertilizer for his cannabis plants. The other man, 64, was intending to fertilize his cannabis plants with guano he'd found in his attic following a "heavy" bat infestation.

The men developed an array of symptoms from their infections, including fever, chronic cough, extensive weight loss, blood poisoning and respiratory failure. Despite being hospitalized and treated with antifungal medication, both men died of their illnesses, according to a report of their cases, published Dec. 4 in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

Col. Bat Guano

 

[BillTre]

https://www.livescience.com/health/...cannabis-kills-2-in-new-york-in-unusual-cases
Bat poop used to grow cannabis kills 2 in New York in unusual cases

View attachment 354595
Col. Bat Guano

Excellent movie reference!

 

[nsaspook]

Attack of the killer squirrels.
https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/carnivorous-feeding-squirrels-documented-california
Carnivorous Squirrels Documented in California
First Evidence of Ground Squirrels Hunting and Eating Voles in Bay Area



This is how the zombie outbreak starts.

For squirrels observed consuming their kills immediately rather than carrying the carcass back to a den, the behavior followed a grimly methodical pattern. In every case, the squirrels “first removed the head of the vole” before pulling meat from the torso. They then “stripped fur from each of the body parts” before devouring the exposed flesh, organs and even cartilage, behavior that was reminiscent of a more seasoned predator.

 

[pinball1970]

Grapes....

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-grapes-math-ordinary-fruit-quantum.html
https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.22.064078
I thought it was some sort of xmas spoof.
I suppose electron pears are next?
I wonder if their Eigen dates will be well defined?
These fruits and bad jokes were harvested in the Quantum field (not Filbert's space)

You’re welcome.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I remember when this happened. It was quite the mystery!

That night, Gloria Ramirez was undergoing a rapid heartbeat and a drop in blood pressure. The woman could hardly breathe and was answering questions in incoherent sentences.

...Doctors and nurses went to work on Ramirez right away to try to save her life. They followed procedures as much as possible by injecting her with drugs to try to bring her vital signs to normal. Nothing worked.

When nurses removed the woman’s shirt to apply defibrillator electrodes, they noticed a strange oily sheen on her body. Medical staff also smelled a fruity, garlicky odor coming from her mouth. Nurses then placed a syringe in Ramirez’s arm to obtain a blood sample. Her blood smelled like ammonia and there were manila-colored particles floating in her blood.

...The doctor in charge of the ER that night looked at the blood sample and agreed with the nurses on duty. Something wasn’t right with the patient and it had nothing to do with heart failure.

Suddenly, one of the attending nurses started to faint. Another nurse developed breathing problems. A third nurse passed out, and when she awoke, she was unable to move her arms or legs.

What was going on? A total of six people were unable to treat Ramirez because they kept having strange symptoms that were somehow related to the patient...

https://allthatsinteresting.com/gloria-ramirez

 

[nsaspook]

 

[nsaspook]

Why in the hell would firefighters drive around a train stop gate arm?

 

[berkeman]

Why in the hell would firefighters drive around a train stop gate arm?

Yeah, that can't possibly be allowed in that department. It looks like they got confused by the freight train clearing the crossing, and the crossing arms not going up soon enough (but that's because there was a train coming from the other direction). I'm pretty sure some FFs will lose their jobs over this.

If the train had hit the cab, it probably would have killed all 3 FFs. Close call.

 

[jack action]

Yeah, that can't possibly be allowed in that department. It looks like they got confused by the freight train clearing the crossing, and the crossing arms not going up soon enough (but that's because there was a train coming from the other direction). I'm pretty sure some FFs will lose their jobs over this.

If the train had hit the cab, it probably would have killed all 3 FFs. Close call.

Coincidentally, I just saw this video today:

​

 

[berkeman]

Coincidentally, I just saw this video today:

Crap! But at least for the firetruck they had an unobstructed view of the tracks on their side, and should have seen the train coming.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Coincidentally, I just saw this video today:

​

UGH! That didn't end well.