The Fire Alarm!

The other night we had a first for our new little family.  In the early morning hours before anyone should be up for the day, the fire alarm in the building sounded!  This was not a low toned alarm sounding.  This was not a smoke detector sounding.  This was an ear-piercing alarm blaring through the house and entire building!  We sprang up out of bed, completely startled for a brief moment before realizing what the noise was.  My heart jumped up into my throat when I first heard the blaring alarm.

We quickly sprang into action getting ourselves ready to get outside.  Brad went to get the boys that were on the opposite side of our home in their beds.  As soon as he got them up Cody began whining until he saw me come out of our bedroom. Here's the difference in the pets....the boys wanted to get outside with us right away.  They were ready to go.  Storm was perfectly calm and quick to ask for water from the faucet as soon as she saw we were up, evacuating was her last priority. Brad was getting the boys leashed up while Storm stood at the kitchen faucet in hopes he'd come turn it on for her.

Out the door we went.  We grabbed coats and left the boys sweaters on them.  In our building due to the long hallways they built double doors to section off the hallways.  Once the alarm sounded those double doors closed automatically. The purpose of those double doors is to hopefully assist firefighters in containing a fire to a certain section somewhat.  A building like this without some type of containment walls could go up in a hurry.  We went down the nearest  stairway to us.  As we were walking down the stairs a fire truck was pulling up alongside the building.

Now here's the difference in the pugs....as we stood outside in the cold, Cody looked around curiously watching the firemen, Simon took care of "business".  He didn't care about why there were firemen or a fire truck.  It wasn't long before we could tell that this was a false alarm.  There was no fire.  We did wait awhile before going back in.  After we got back in our place we evaluated our "performance", it was a good test to see how fast we could all get out. 

Thank goodness we're both quite calm people.  Brad is especially the calm type!  He's not quick to panic!  As we stood outside I overheard stories of other residents that were not as calm in their approach to get outside when the alarm sounded.  That alarm was certainly startling...maximum startling! Once we realized what it was we were both organized with our thoughts.  Organized as in we were not rushing around bumping into each other to get ready to get out.  We were focused and on task.  It was the first time the boys have been leashed up then quickly led outside due to a fire alarm. 

This was definitely an experience! In my past apartment homes I've set off the smoke detector by burning something in the kitchen but I've never heard a building fire alarm sound until the other night!  It gives new meaning to the term..."sound the alarm".  Since the experience I have thought about investing in a fire proof safe sometime soon. I've also thought about how difficult of a job firefighters would have getting water to a fire in this building.  There's so many hallways and so many stairs.  Yikes!