To the Rescue...

Last night we had a bit of excitement at our house. My roommate and I were watching a movie in my bedroom when all of a sudden my roommate said "Do you hear an alarm?" I listened for awhile and said "No, it's probably just the movie". I muted the TV and then I could faintly hear something but I still wasn't sure what it was. I got up and opened my window and I could then definitely hear an alarm, but I still couldn't tell where it was coming from. My roommate went to the kitchen and then said "It's the building next door. There are flashing lights and everything!"

I ran to the kitchen and we both peered outside. Everyone from that building had evacuated and was standing out near our stairwell. We were both so curious to find out what was going on, so my roommate went out and started chatting with them. I stayed inside awhile longer and continued to watch out the back window to see if the fire department was going to come. Indeed they did!


We could hear them clear down the street but they turned off their siren when they got to the complex. They parked right behind our building and four firemen jumped out (all fully clothed*) and made their way to the crowd of people waiting out in the cold. Within seconds, the blaring alarm (literally designed to wake the dead...unless the dead are watching a movie) was silenced.

Apparently, a couple living on the middle floor was trying to drill a hole somewhere and they hit the sprinkler pipe. Water started coming out which triggered the fire alarm. And if the sprinklers "go off" in one unit in the building then the entire building is put on alert. After silencing the alarm, the firemen made their way through a few of the units in the building to check things out, helping with blankets and towels to clean up the mess in the unit that was flooding with water. I'm assuming they turned the water off too, but nobody mentioned that.

It was kind of exciting, but probably because we all knew we weren't in any immediate danger. I thought it was interesting though that even though we technically live in Sandy, it was the Midvale Fire Department that showed up. Maybe they were closer, but even at that it took them about 10 minutes to get there.

But just the same, I'm so grateful to ANY fire department that comes to the rescue because we just might need them in the future. We finally figured out (after three different occassions) that the smoke detector that keeps going off whenever we use the oven (even though there is never any smoke) is actually the carbon monoxide detector! Yeah...that could be a problem.

Excitement always abounds at my house!

* As I was waiting for TRAX the other day, a fire truck pulled to a stop across the street. The driver jumped out and appreared to only be in a t-shirt and boxer shorts. He then walked to the side of the truck (the side facing all of us), pulled out his gear and proceeded to dress right there in the middle of the road while the other firemen helped with the situation they got called out for in the first place.