A: Devastating house fire • B: Smith Control Systems, where Feight worked • C: Blaze at Amanda’s Fireplace • D: Two fires at TCI of NY • E: Feight residence • F: Structure fire at home • G: Shed/barn fire • NOT PICTURED: Meadowgreens fire
With news breaking of a bizarre terrorism arrest with connections to Columbia County, one can’t help but to wonder: What is it with the Route 9H corridor?
In a previous report, this site referred to a four-mile stretch of 9H as “Fire Alley,” with a series of major fires in just 2.5 years.
Five fires on 9H during this period included the May 2010 blaze which leveled Amanda’s Fireplace on 9H, between Falls Road and Falls Industrial Road. That fire was deemed an arson by investigators, though no one was ever arrested. Columbia County issued a $2.5 million stimulus bond to assist Amanda’s with rebuilding.
Just a stone’s throw from Amanda’s Fireplace on Falls Industrial Road one finds TCI of NY, the PCB handler/processor whose facility was devastated by a September 2012 fire. That inferno (and the overnight sequence of explosions) caused an evacuation of neighbors, with all residents within 15 miles told to stay indoors and turn off air conditioning for the day.
As also previously reported here, two additional fires (for a total of seven) occurred just a couple miles off Fire Alley in recent years, on nearby Knitt Road along the border of Ghent and Stockport.
A January 2008 structure fire at 28 Knitt Road forced a woman to jump from a second-story window to safety; and then a July 2011 barn/shed fire at 16 Knitt Road. Knitt Road turns into Falls Road as it heads east, coming to a T at Route 9H—the epicenter of Fire Alley.
And now, stories are breaking of the Federal complaint charging one Eric J. Feight as an alleged co-conspirator (with Glendon S. Crawford) in an outlandish plot to irradiate Muslims with a homemade X-ray device. Feight is listed as a registered Conservative in Columbia County Board of Elections records at 115 Knitt Road—several houses down from the barn and structure fires of 2008 and 2011.
As the Times-Union reports, the terrorism suspect
formerly worked as a computer software expert and “project engineer” for Smith Control Systems... A company official said Feight has not worked at the company since 2010.
Where is Smith Control Systems? Right next door to Amanda’s Fireplace on 9H. Smith Control is #1839, and Amanda’s is #1869.
Coincidence? Almost surely. (It should be noted, Mr. Feight and his accomplice are, innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.) That said, it continues to amaze how consistently one isolated area of a rural county manages to generate both news, and trouble.
In any event, the complaint alleges:
FEIGHT has designed, identified and received needed parts, built, and successfully tested a working remote initiation device to remotely control an industrial x-ray system - which CRAWFORD later demonstrated - and that remote initiation device is powered by a plug-in cigarette lighter electrical source, consistent with CRAWFORD's requirement to put the whole system into a truck so that it can be used against human targets. FEIGHT is aware of CRAWFORD's plan that the remote initiation device be used to remotely control an industrial x-ray system to injure or kill human targets deemed undesirable, and, on November 14, 2012, FEIGHT met with CRAWFORD, UCE #2, and UCE #3 near Albany, NY to discuss the purpose of the project, assign tasks, and confirm his capability to design and build a remote initiation device.
And:
CRAWFORD and FEIGHT both have used the phrase "sterilize medical waste" to refer to the harming and killing of human beings, and stated that the purpose of their device is to kill human beings. From time to time, however, they each have expressed a reluctance to be the one who actually triggers the device to kill.
