Jan 25 2008
Hot News Day in Vegas
It wasn’t hot out today. Far from it - average daytime temps for this time of year in world-famous Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada are in the mid-50s F (55°F = 13°C). It was, however, a hot news day.
The Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino caught on fire today. I work just south of the airport, with a really decent view of the strip. Frank and I were just coming back from a meeting down the street when we heard there was smoke appearing to come from New York New York. A quick online check revealed that it was actually the Monte Carlo that was burning. From our vantage point, the smoke had an eerie 9/11 look to it, since the “skyline” of NYNY totally blocks the view of the Monte Carlo, so the smoke looked like it was rising from the NY skyline. Kinda freaky. Of course, it was Friday, and getting close to lunch, so we went online to watch streaming video of the news reports. I was on the phone with Boyfriend as he watched it on TV.
I wasn’t surprised to see that news of the fire quickly spread around the world. Las Vegas is a world famous city, after all, and big news like this that has a direct effect on tourists visiting our city tends to travel fast. Luckily, even at this late hour (it’s 8pm local time, the fire broke out around 11am) there are still no reports of injuries beyond a few with smoke inhalation. The casino is closed for the time being, but since the fire was contained to the upper floors, and seems to have mostly affected the facade of the building, I expect that the casino itself, which is on the ground level, and at least the lower floors of guest rooms will be reopening in about a week. There’s a news special on tonite at 10pm, which I intend to watch.
It’s always weird when the news in your city makes the international papers, even when you live in a world famous city. Before the news special comes on, I have a ton of blog posts to catch up on since I spent quite a bit of time watching the news online and then in a lunch meeting, so I didn’t get my midday fix. Off to read what all of you are up to…
I heard about it on Fox News, which claimed it had “swept through hundreds of rooms”. CNN reported it was a roof fire. They all made it out to be much worse than it really was. Disasters get good ratings.
I think was CNN that claimed the fire was right across from the MGM, which had previously burned down, been demolished, and re-built on the same spot. He had no clue that the MGM fire was a mile away, at the current site of Bally’s, not where the new MGM Grand is located. And the old MGM wasn’t demolished. I can never figure out why news people have to report stuff they know nothing about.
Sensationalism at its best, eh? I think the upper 5 floors will be closed for some time, with select rooms on the lower floors closed that may have had some smoke or water damage, but the casino will be open within the week.
News people keep talking because staring at the footage with their mouths open won’t get the ratings. Like good gossip or a game of telephone, they fill in the bits of what they know with noise just to keep talking. I tend to stay away from Fox News completely - in this case I watched the local news. At least Gary Waddell knows Vegas history and geography!
This is the first I’ve heard of this; so glad no one was hurt badly!
I’m glad too - this could have been a huge tragedy that seriously affects Vegas tourism, but the Clark County Fire Department and the staff at the Monte Carlo did a great job. The paper had an article today in which some hotel guests said it was really confusing because they thought that evacuation orders weren’t clear at first, but honestly, when is there not some confusion in a situation like this?