Close to home

Yesterday was a bad day in Seattle.KOMO 4's helicopter crashed. Crashed, essentially, on the front lawn of the space needle.En heard about it moments after it happened. We turned on the local news. I watched a bit before I went in to work.This is something that happens somewhere else. You see it on TV and the internet, but it's somehow "away."I was able to walk to the site on my lunch break. I don't really know why I went. I had walked by there a number of times -- mostly when we were living in Belltown. I would walk by Fisher Plaza twice a day -- both to and from work.Seattle is full of aircraft all the time. There is, of course, SeaTac which is a real international airport. A hair north of that is Boeing Field which brings its own traffic to the area. All the float planes coming and going around Lake Union adds to the mix. A bit further south is Lewis McChord -- sometimes I see some traffic from them too. The helicopters are buzzing around too. I stop and watch all of them. I always have.When I was watching TV I didn't get a sense for how close things were.It really was brought home. Too close.