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I was halfway through my summer vacation, en route from one cottage to another retreat, when the tanks at Sunrise Propane went off in Downsview early Aug. 10.

Normally, I would not remark on my extracurricular comings-and-goings in a column about city politics, but politically, at least, vacations seem to have taken a very prominent role in the ongoing narrative of the explosion and its miraculously small, but nevertheless tragic, death toll.

So I try to remember if that day I thought: time to toss aside the time I was spending with friends and family, pick up a digital recorder and laptop, and join my journalistic colleagues on the front lines of this very dramatic story? Maybe if I'd had a bit less faith in those colleagues' abilities, I would have. As it stood... well, it was a good vacation, thanks for asking.

Now obviously, the level of responsibility that a community newspaper reporter carries in the face of a devastating explosion is not the same as a mayor's. And so there have been far more people suggesting that Mayor David Miller should have cut short his family trip to British Columbia than were clamoring for Nickle's return to face the conflagration.

Ought he have stayed in Toronto when he flew back in the immediate aftermath? Miller says no: "I'm also a father. And one of the things my family was doing in B.C. was celebrating my daughter's 13th birthday with relatives. You have to understand that as a father, you have to be with your daughter when she turns 13."

The needs of 13-year-old girls for both parents at the birthday party notwithstanding, I'm inclined to agree that Miller need not have been in town for the whole "crisis" in Downsview.

As I write this, cleanup crews paid for - for now - by the city are aiming to have the neighbourhood cleaned up of asbestos fallout by the weekend. The property damage may be considerable, but homeowners are at home. Deputy Fire Chief Bob Leek, who died at the site, is being mourned as per the wishes of his widow and family – who have made it publicly clear they were comfortable saying goodbye without having the mayor at their side.
 
Premier Dalton McGuinty is sending signals that propane facilities will in future have a much more difficult time locating so close to residential neighbourhoods; Miller did use his time on speaker-phone and back in Toronto to initiate a review of Toronto's zoning bylaw as it pertains to propane and other hazardous materials.

Aside from making himself available for photo opportunities and leading the daily press scrum, it's hard to see what there would have been for Miller to do.

Yet, I'll admit, he does look bad hanging back, in a way that absentee mayors in the past might not have. Mel Lastman, for instance, used to skedaddle down to Florida at the drop of a hat, both when he was mayor of Toronto, and prior that as mayor of North York. He would often stay there for weeks on end, he and Marilyn and the grandchildren, and rarely would anyone remark on it.

Part of Miller's problem is that he's living in a post-Katrina world. We all remember the spectacle of the levees breaking in New Orleans, leaving a whole city in the hands of incompetent bureaucrats, while Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice Condoleezza Rice was spotted buying shoes in New York City.

There is a fundamental difference, of course, as a visibly fed-up Shelley Carroll, acting deputy mayor during the week after the explosion, pointed out to me when I brought up the comparison.

"You can buy shoes any time you like. But if you have one daughter and she turns 13 once - once - and you talk to the people that really matter most in the situation, the people involved in the co-ordinating team and you figure out how you're dealing with that with technology - it's not buying shoes."

Bottom line on this whole affair is that a Toronto neighbourhood came through a potentially hellish conflagration with life and limb largely - though not completely - intact. It looks as though with some continued pressure, the provincial government will finally take responsibility for the safety of communities that until now didn't even know that they're in danger.

And the mayor sang Happy Birthday to his daughter in person, not over the phone.

Where, exactly, is the problem?