Fire Alarms

The fire alarms were going off just an hour ago.  This is the second time they have gone off since I moved into my apartment in March.  It’s no big deal this time.  Someone just burned their pasta really badly.  The first time was a bit of an adventure.

It was about 4 in the afternoon on a weekday.  I was home studying for one of my actuarial exams.  (I think I’ll make my next post about the never-ending exams, please be patient)  I heard a slight ringing sound.  It wasn’t very loud, but it persisted for a while.  I wasn’t sure what it was.  After a while I couldn’t concentrate so I went to my peephole to investigate.  I tried to look through it, but it was clouded over.  That’s strange, I thought, the door opens to an internal hallway, there’s no way the weather in the hallway could be that different from my apartment.  I was confused.

So I open the door and see that there was billowing smoke coming from the other end of the hallway.  Quick! Remember what you are supposed to do!  First mission: put on some pants and shoes.  It was a hot day and all I had on was a t-shirt and boxer-briefs (yes, ladies, my preferred underwear is boxer-briefs).  Check.  Second mission: gather up Scooby and his leash.  Check.  Third mission: take my laptop, wallet, phone, and keys with me.  Nearly everything else I can replace.  Check.  Fourth mission: get out of the building.  Ok, I looked out the doorway again.  It looks fine and I don’t see any flames, so the fire has to be at the other end.  Okay, I have a clear shot to the exit.  Scooby isn’t even fazed at this point.  The smoke is not anywhere near low enough for his level.  It was only the upper half of the hallway that had smoke.  He did not seem agitated at all at this point.  I was exiting while stooped over so I didn’t inhale a bunch of smoke.

We made it outside in probably five seconds or so.  Total elapsed time since initially looking out the doorway was likely just thirty seconds.  Now it’s time to assess the situation.  The outside of the building is not engulfed in flames and I am comfortably away from the building.  It’s now time to call 911 for the first real time ever.

Sidebar #1: I once accidentally called 911 while I was down at the Burlington Public Library.  I had my laptop with me and was plugging away, searching for a job during my jobless patch.  My laptop was right where you would expect, on my lap.  It was also right on top of my cell phone.  Somehow the laptop landed right on top of the 0 key three times and then landed on the send key I guess.  I knew that numbers were being pressed because I heard the key press sound.  So I pull it out, see that it is actively calling and quickly press End before the call could connect.  The screen also told me that the number I was calling had the label Emergency where the person’s name or number would normally go.  I had no idea that my phone interpreted 000 the same as 911.  About 30 seconds later I get a call back from the dispatcher’s office asking me if there was an emergency.  I told her about the pocket dial and that there really wasn’t a problem.  I was glad the situation ended there without me getting in trouble.  I was kinda perplexed later on after I had time to process what happened.  It’s great that they called me back, but what if someone was in the middle of murdering me or something else suitably revolting?  The killer notices that I was in the process of dialing 911, and then responds to the reply call that it was just a pocket dial.  That thought lingered with me for a while and obviously up until at least now.  Anyway, the lesson I learned was that I needed to put a key lock on the phone so pocket dials are now much more difficult to occur.

Sidebar #2: The new Burlington Public Library is a beautiful building.  It is full of wonderful oak and walnut wood.  It has a grand ceiling and it has windows everywhere letting in a ton of light in the daytime.  It is one of the nicest libraries I have ever seen.  It replaced one of the worst looking and cramped libraries I have ever seen.  It was paid for primarily with private dollars.  The city council didn’t want to spend nearly as much money as the new one cost.  My parents were proud supporters of the effort and sent some donations in.  As a thank you, their names are in the entryway.  That was several years ago.  To this day, my dad jokes they shouldn’t have had to pay anything to get their name on the thank you plaque since my mom has racked up so many late fees throughout the years.

Back to the apartment: I called the Des Moines 911 and described succinctly where I was located and what is going on.  I then was transferred to the fire department and had to repeat the same thing!  Why should I have to repeat the story for a second time?  In a situation where seconds matter, this seemed like a big waste of time.

I was one of the first ones outside the building.   Most of the residents were out within a few minutes.  I was surprised that no one else even bothered to call 911.  The fire department got there in a reasonable time frame and quickly got to work.  One of the apartments at the end of the hall had a grease fire on their stove.  I guess they weren’t being careful or didn’t react quickly enough to smother the flame and it melted the stove and I guess parts of the cabinets above it were on fire.

We were forced to stay outside for about 45 minutes until the powerful fans the fire department had could clear the smoke away from the building.  The fire truck was blocking the only car exit to the complex, so I couldn’t just go for a drive or anything.  This is where Scooby got restless.  We took several long walks around the neighborhood during this time.  He didn’t understand that we couldn’t either get in the car for a ride or go back into the apartment.

Once we got back into the apartment complex, it smelled for the rest of the day and the next like burnt plastic, but after that the smell was replaced with the usual set of bad smells in this nasty complex.  So in a way, we were back to living somewhat happily ever after.