The big fire Friday night

Quite a scene Friday night on FM2499 just north of Grapevine Mills Mall. I was driving home from downtown Dallas around 7pm when I saw a huge plume of smoke coming up from somewhere near the mall. The fire was consuming the clubhouse of the Marquis at Silver Lake apartment complex, which is just south of the Flower Mound town line, just north of the Starbucks by Magic Mikes. It was a huge fire. I heard later that 9 different fire agencies responded to fight the fire and keep it from spreading. I didn't have any camera better than my Treo cam (the video posted here), so I called FOX 4, and we had video on our 9pm news. Fortunately for the residents, no one's apartment home was damaged. The clubhouse, which was self-standing, suffered significant damage. Perhaps there's enough of it to rebuild, however.

I had no problem passing by the apartments heading home to Flower Mound. People were slowing down to get a look, but traffic was moving. But 30 minutes later, my wife and I were heading back south on FM2499 to see a movie at the mall. By now, FMPD had closed off southbound FM2499 at Gerault, which was causing a lengthy south-bound backup.

Note to FMPD: Next time you need to shut off that stretch of road, how bout doing it at the Silveron intersection. That way traffic can easily go east toward 121 or west to the Grapevine Lake Dam. There are fewer ways out if you let the traffic go all the way south to Gerault. The backups were much longer than they should have been at that hour of the night.