What would you do?

At our local national chainstore, they've been doing quite a bit of remodeling lately. Not too long ago I was in line at the cashier and an alarm went off--really screechy, accompanied by flashing lights up in the ceiling. I was second or third in line, and briefly wondered if I should just abandon my cart and run like crazy out of the door. It had all the classic signs of being a fire alarm system going off.

Everyone, including the cashier, acted like nothing was happening. So I stayed in line.

Yeah, but not exactly being the shy type when it comes to asking questions, when I did get the chance to get my purchases rung up, I asked the cashier what that alarm had been, because if memory serves, it had finished going off by then. She basically said that they had been having problems with the system, but if it had been the real thing (i.e., there actually had been a fire) someone would have come over the intercom and said so.

Interesting. Interesting, too, that when I went to pull my car out of my parking space a couple of minutes later, I had to wait as two massive fire engines went by in front of me...

In a conversation that I had with someone soon after, the person pointed out that the logic that the cashier used was backward--that it would make more sense if, after the fire alarm started going off, that it was the policy to come on the intercom only to announce that it was only a test, if that was what it was. If there were a fire, there would be a good chance that the intercom wouldn't work at all. This person said they would have left the cart where it was and exited the building.

What would you have done in this situation?

I never heard of any fire and/or fire damage associated with the alarm going off that evening. There have been a couple of times that an alarm has gone off while I've been in that store since then, and one was because someone leaned against a secured exit or something, and that time there were no lights flashing as the sound went off. It's something that has made me think twice about shopping there, because if it goes off that many times when I have actually been there, how many times does it go off?

Fires are tricky, and can spread quickly. I have heard about a casino fire in the 1980's where people died because, as I understand it, they were sitting in the casino, and the fire spread so fast through the ceiling that it just collapsed. The person that was talking about that fire said they weren't even sure if the alarm had gone off in that situation. Sometimes, there is no warning. But if there is a warning, there is no telling how fast the flames are going through the building, and that's why acting quickly to get out of harm's way (even if it is not immediately evident) is crucial. It seems like it would be best to have decided before you ever get into such a situation what you are going to do if that situation arises.

Yeah, standing around acting like there was nothing wrong was not the best choice in the situation outlined above, but it was made all the easier by the fact that no one else seemed worried about it. But just because you aren't worried about it doesn't mean nothing will happen---in fact, it seems to be human nature for everyone to think that nothing like a store fire will ever happen to them....

So, would love to hear any responses, but hope that at least everyone will take the time to figure out so they know for their own personal benefit what they would do if a fire alarm went off while they were shopping. The emergency would be a lot less devastating in this instance if people knew what to do to avoid being caught in a store/hotel/building that is not home fire. What would you do?

Avoiding an emergency altogether? Priceless.

Well, this is perhaps one of those experiences with a lesson whose moral everyone else already knows, but bear with me--if you didn't know, you might spare yourself an emergency...

When we had owned our clothes dryer for what felt like a relatively short time, it got less and less effective at doing its intended job--we had to run clothes through more than one cycle in order to dry them, though eventually they did get dry. Not a good scenario energy-wise, or energy bill-wise, or even patience-wise. So we finally bit the bullet and called in a repairman to find out what the problem was.

Turns out we had a burned-out element which needed replacing, but from what I understand, that was not the only factor contributing to the problem. I know about the lint screen that you are supposed to clean out after every load. What I didn't know was that about every year or so you are supposed to clean out the entire hose that is connected to the dryer, because the lint filter, helpful as it is, doesn't catch all the lint that decides to separate itself from your fabrics. In fact, the repairman informed us that not only was build-up of lint in the dryer hose contributing to the slowdown of the drying process, but such build-up can cause a fire. I'd call that an emergency. It may not be a likely emergency, but I doubt that anyone will stand in the laundry room discussing statistical probability while it happens to them. My husband now cleans out the dryer hose every year or so now--and it feels good to know that we are making our home a safer place to be. Hopefully this is a case where it will always be an emergency averted. Have you checked your dryer hose lately? You know what they say about prevention...

Dryer lint, you may ask? You may think that I am stretching for blog subjects, (which may sometimes be the case) but one of the things that led to the story about dryer lint was this post, found over at Survival Lady's website. (Thanks, Survival Lady!) Talk about a cool fire-starting kit, and one of the main components is.... (drum-roll please)...dryer lint! I have yet to put one of these together, but I have purchased a tin in which to place the components. Soooo....if you are into statistical analysis and figure the probability of a fire is not enough to clean out that dryer hose, maybe you'll do it for the sake of a few good fire-starting kits...