A friend of mine from up north just called me to ask whether I was okay -- she heard about the commuter train wreck in Burbank this morning. I'm fine, but I am concerned about a new guy (the campus security officer) at work who might have been on it. I believe he would have been.

Today is my telecommute day at home, plus the wreck happened a few miles short of where I catch the train, however I believe it is the same train I normally take when the weather's bad, as it is today. In other words, there is no reason I would have been on it, but it's jittering nonetheless.

So far there are a number of fatalities known. A witness said that he thought one train hit a car, and then plowed into another oncoming commuter train, then into a parked freight engine. Details are rather stetchy. The Metrolink trains web page is so overloaded it won't come up for me at the moment.

The trains are already screwed up from the recent heavy rains because the only line out to Venture Co. was washed away and has not been replaced yet. Although they may clean this mess up quickly, it might take more than a day or two, so it may affect our schedules. Anyway, I'll try to find out about our new guy.