Cleanup on aisle 9 . . .

Mike says that Publix Super Markets has a company motto: "Where shopping is a pleasure." But now this needs to be amended to say, "Unless an airplane falls through the roof."

That's exactly what happened shortly after 7 o'clock last Monday evening at the Publix near our house. M and I had just come home from our walk when Jenny called to say that a plane had crashed into Publix. She'd read about it on Facebook. M turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, but there was nothing being reported yet.

Soon, though, it became the topic of the evening, with local news anchors talking on the phone to witnesses, asking them such Pulitzer Prize-worthy leading questions as "So, Mr. X, how loud were the people screaming?" and "How surprised were you when the ceiling tiles fell and that fireball erupted right in front of you?" and "Was it absolute chaos in there, with everybody pushing and shoving and scrambling for the exits?"

The good (and surprising) news is that no one was killed in the accident, not even the two people on board the airplane--though they were injured pretty seriously. There were also three shoppers who were burned. Two ladies were treated at the local hospital and then released. The third injured shopper, a young man who attends Stetson University, was flown to Orlando Regional Medical Center, as were the plane's two pilots.

Here's a story about the crash from yesterday's Daytona Beach News-Journal. It has several good pictures, including a map that shows how the Publix store sits a half-mile from the airport where the plane had just made its takeoff--and almost directly in line with the runway.

And here's one from a Tampa online newspaper that says the injured Stetson student is from that city and a graduate of Plant High School. (What a small world: That's where M and his parents and a lot of his aunts and uncles and cousins went to school.) This webpage also has a video clip from WFLA-TV News in Tampa.

Whoo-eee! The things I never thought I'd be reporting!