Fire Alarm is No Alarm

Today there was a false fire alarm at my condo. Again. Like this is now the quadrillionth time. It started about 6:25am, a little early but thankfully not like 2am (has happened before). Usually it is a false alarm… of course it is, how often does a real fire happen… and it gets reset in half a minute or so.

But it didn’t stop… so I went to check the fire panel downstairs… no fire. Later I went over to the guardhouse, thinking they were probably sleeping or something. Oh they were having trouble. There was no fire (of course), but there was some problem with the guardhouse main fire panel that prevented the alarm from being reset. So the fire bell continued to ring. And soon after, a fire engine arrived, and followed by a police car not long after. And by then a sizable population of residents were at the guardhouse to complain and gripe, and wonder in amazement how the alarm couldn’t be stopped.

Fire alarms have become just too common that it has become business-as-usual for most people. Just a few days ago only there was also a fire alarm at my office. Everyone was like just going on with whatever it is they were doing, practically as if no one heard the alarm at all. The fire shutters came down… sealing off the building in sections. People who was trying to get from one place to another and finding themselves blocked, simply asked for directions to get from here to there, as if the fire shutters were simply an annoying inconvenience.

Interestingly, baby Vanessa wasn’t disturbed by the loud fire alarm at all. Maybe it is like one of the many sounds/music/noises she hears every day. Today’s false alarm rang for almost 50 minutes, until 7:15am. Baby’s going to think this is one of the usual sounds… nothing to worry about.