It happened again early this morning. Suddenly this deafening shrieking explodes in my head and when I wake up I’m banging with my fist on the alarm clock and Aileen is yelling at me “NO! IT’S THE FIRE ALARM, NOT THE ALARM CLOCK!” (She has to yell to be heard, never mind that she has also been startled half way out of her mind!)
I come to my senses and in the adrenalin filled next 0.27 seconds realize that it is Saturday morning and that our alarm clock should not be going off, and that it is indeed the fire alarm pounding my ears (thank goodness we don’t have an alarm clock that loud. It would shorten your life expectancy by 47 years…). Then I remember that someone recently broke into our building’s Fireman’s Lock Box (and then used that key to break into our storage lockers…but that’s another story. People have also been skinny-dipping in our pool…but I digress) and I have the responsibility of going down to the lobby and letting the Fire Department in because they don’t have a key.
So I scramble into my clothes, grab my keys / phone on the way out the door, and sprint for the stairs. We only live on the 5th floor, but by the time I fly down 7 or so flights to the lobby, the firemen are already coming in the door with all their scary looking paraphernalia on. The concierge was still there even though his shift had been over hours ago, and he had let them in.
Over the next 10 minutes I make several observations:
1. The response time of the Vancouver Fire Department is amazing. They can get to my lobby faster than I can. This is reassuring. They also look very tough and brave in their yellow suites and fire axes.
2. As other residents begin to stumble into the lobby from the stairwell, they all look very disheveled, with hair all mussed up, frumpy sweatshirts on, and slippers. Everyone was obviously in bed. Then I realize I don’t even know what time it is. I ask someone to discover that it is 5:50 AM on Saturday morning. Argh! So much for sleeping in… Several people actually head down the street to grab a java at Starbuck’s, others go walk their dog.
3. By the number of people in the lobby, only about 10% of our building actually bothers to evacuate when they hear the bell. That’s because it’s always been a false alarm. If we ever have a real fire we will have to get on the intercom and tell everybody they really do need to get out of bed, grab their pet, and stumble down 20 flights of stairs. (The first time the alarm went off after we moved in we freaked at the noise, got dressed and headed for the stairs. Our neighbors looked at us and asked us where we were going…After that, everyone stays in bed and I go investigate and phone them if it is a real emergency. )
4. Our building is full of young adults. Looking around the lobby at the 50 or so people there, I felt rather old – and I’m not old! Most of the people were 20+ somethings. Maybe the older people just have more sense to plug their ears and stay in bed.
5. Living on the 5th floor is better than the 25th floor. When the alarms go off, the elevators automatically go to the main floor and are deactivated until the alarm is reset. If it is a false alarm and the Fire Department is not able to reset the system (like this morning), not only do you have to stumble down 30 flights of stairs to get out, but you have to climb up 30 flights of stairs to go back to bed! Talk about early morning exercise…
6. If you want to get into a community, you can’t beat living in the neighborhood. Fire alarms are a great time to get to know people and build community. It’s a shared experience you can all talk about, and you get a chance to connect with a few people you haven’t seen for a few days. It’s actually a great outreach event. Maybe next time I’ll bring cookies…
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