[Editor’s Note: This column is about a two-car collision in Stone Ridge on Tuesday, August 25.]

I was driving south on Route 209 and I was in a hurry as I wanted to turn around in the post office and pick up mail before they close at 1 p.m. for lunch. It’s not lost upon me that had I left my house a minute earlier, I might well have been in the crash. I didn’t see it but I sure heard it. It was the loudest, most terrifying sound I’d ever heard. A large oil tanker right in front of me bearing the company name TERPENING Syracuse on its wide metal rump, obscured my view. I was about seven vehicles north, traveling south on Route 209 in a direct line to the crash.

At first, I thought there was an explosion. My car shook, I shook. The highway seemed to vibrate. There were horrific sounds: metallic screeches, a bang, a boom, an insist mechanical growl, and smoke filled the air, then, as if on a delay, a woman’s scream. The cars froze in position.

A young man in a fluorescent traffic safety vest ran down the line of cars calling out to the stalled drivers. When he reached my car he said, “Vicious accident right up here – you’re going to be here for a long time!”

I assumed he was a police officer and asked, “What exactly happened?”

“Oh I’m not a cop,” he answered. “I’m just drilling the well right up there.”

I then understood the other sound and source of vibration, the insistent gritty drone of the Titan well drill. I looked over and the high yellow drill tower was aimed at the sky, diagonally across from the post office. It was causing much of the vibration I felt.

The scene felt apocalyptic as smoke and flame rose from the mangled jeep. It was strange that simultaneously the tower drill, despite its heavy growling descent to 375 feet, was failing to draw water. The oddest aspect was that I was holding the petition circulating around town, asking for more study of the traffic on this very road.

A fireman, then approached and said “You might want to turn around.”

I said I was on an urgent business and could I pull into the post office?

“Oh, no. That’s where it is, “he said and motioned to an open driveway on my right, which I knew as Tack Tavern, where George Washington’s troops stayed while George Washington himself slept across the street at Wynkoop House. These two buildings are the most historic on our Main Street.

Tack Tavern is owned by Tim Hunt, a current town board member and the official landmark Wynkoop House belongs to Gary Tinterow, the acclaimed art historian and museum director. Both men were former chairs of Marbletown Historic Preservation Commission and both had spoken at last Tuesday night’s town board meeting.

Tim had asked probing questions, and Gary had spoken up, not against possible more “attainable housing” but about the factors that might make it difficult or even impossibly problematic as there is already a long-term severe water shortage right here, and traffic is already dense. And of course, this area is in itself landmarked as Stone Ridge Historic District. With the high cost for new construction, lack of infrastructure for more water and sewage, and the heavy traffic, it seemed fated to see this accident, occurring simultaneously with the failed drilling for water, as a warning.

I felt as if we were all in a drama, fully cast with major characters present, and converging on this one historic theme: Not here. Look to the past not to ruin the future.

I left my car at Tack Tavern and walked toward the accident. Other people were out on the street, walking or huddling around an older woman, the driver of the most mangled of the two wrecked cars. The scene felt surreal, as if played in slow motion. I walked directly into Gail Many, the Town Historian, who shook her head in disbelief. Then I ran right into John Currie who lives across from the post office and is a professional photographer and was out taking pictures.

“Maybe this is in an awful way, a gift. Isn’t it telling us something?”

That this place right here without adequate water and already dangerous traffic, is not a good choice for high density multiple unit development.

Stay tuned for the Public Hearing in Marbletown Town Hall: September 15, at 6 p.m.

Welcome to the Historic District.

Laura Shaine Cunningham is the author of many plays and books, including A Place in the Country.