We heard all these sirens outside our bldg(normal cause it's the city) and husband was leaving for practice. He calls me a few minutes later telling me not to panic but there are 8 fire trucks in front of our bldg, a couple ambulances and cop cars and the firemen are all over the bldg on the inside.

I'm trying not to panic when suddenly the silent blinking alarm goes off in our place and the halls, and there's this loudfucking speaker thing going off where they're telling us the Chicago fire department are in our bldg in answer to a possible fire and to stay calm. Meanwhile josh calls again cause he's still in the lobby and can't get out telling me he has no idea what's up, Charlie is screaming in the other room cause the loud speaker thing keeps going off and next thing I know he's at the front door getting out.

I run in the hall and there's firemen out there trying to reason with him and telling us to stay calm and to get back inside.

Poor kid was shaking and crying like crazy(I wasn't that far behind him, I actually started freaking out a little).

Later they tell us to stay calm it's being solved and Josh calls back and tells me they're leaving the bldg and it was a false alarm cause someone across the street reported some flames from a balcony.

I have NEVER been so scared in my life. Every awful scenario ran through my head. I live on the 21st floor of a high rise in the Loop and getting out would have been tough as hell, especially with a kid and two cats.

Josh reminded me that there's a built in sprinkler system in here and that with the two high rise fires in the past 18 mos in this city, they now overreact rather then underreact to these things.

I'm gonna go have a glass of wine now that the poor child of mine is calm and in bed(not before getting a STERN lecture from me on running out the door before and what could have happened if there WAS a fire).

I think I'm going to pray tonight. Something I don't often do.

cats vs. kid - hmmm

wow. how scary.

so glad you all are safe.

enjoy your wine.

Whew! Glad to hear it was just a false alarm. But, this might be a good reminder to plan an Escape Route for that occasion (God forbid) it should ever happen. Since Charlie is still little, you can make it kinda fun. Give him something to be responsible for -- eg, "Charlie, you're in charge of grabbing the kitty carriers. Let's look for the kitties and pack 'em in."

Being that you're so high up, I'm sure your building has a fire route that takes you to a certain floor depending on where the fire is located. Practice where you're supposed to meet, in case you're separated. That sort of stuff.

Kids love responsibility and it might help keep him out of "panic mode" for the next time something like this happens, which will help you as well.

Aural "Obner Fire Warden" Fixation

uh, skip that Jen. the wine will do the trick.

Actually, given your evening, I think rum might be in order.

Glad to hear all is well.

Yup, alcohol is always a better answer.

print this on a shirt and i'll buy 5 right away.

It's not fun when your house burns down. But wine is good.

<---had house burned down

Btw, were there any HOT firemen?! (Yes, I used the word "hot".)

that's fucked.

everything burned? did you lose it all Spoon?

heck, i think you talked ME into figuring out an escape route myself!

I was 15. Thanksgiving, 1981. Lost everything.

Coincidentally, I was on suspension from school that weekend for calling my French teacher a ridiculous old cow.

But I don't think she burned it down or nuthin'.

damn man, that's rough.

did you at least get to eat turkey?

Yeah, the house burned down early Saturday morning after Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure it was accidently caused by one of my brother-in-law's relatives who used to smoke pot in the woodshed behind the kitchen, but I never told dad or the insurance guys. Otherwise we'd have been screwed about affording a different house.

liquor~she'll love it! one of my favorites
Glad to know all is well, I like tania's ideas for making some plans for the worst ( I am the proud owner of over 10 fire extinguishers)

Glad everything's settled down, Jen.

I can't even remember if it was last year or the year before but something similar happened to me. The only difference was there actually was a fire on the ground floor and I had to get out down the stairs through some pretty thick smoke.

It was really scary because you didn't know what was happening and there was the possibility that I could have lost everything. Luckily the Fire Brigade put the fire out quite quickly and there was no structural damage to the building.

I'd have a hard time staying in the building. My father always taught me it's better to find out a fire alarm is false from the outside, than true from the inside.

my dads entire house burned down once - some kind of short in the freezer power cord out in the garage.

not good times.

Yeah I was pretty much crawling the walls from the inside.I wanted out soo badly.

I told Josh this morning that this just made me want to move out of here all the more then before. I just hate, hate, hate being this high up, I want a normal home where I can walk out the front door or back door. So we're going to work on it even harder over the next couple mos.

Charlie luckily felt better this morning after I told him what I found out, which was that someone was grilling on their balcony and someone in our bldg AND someone from the building across the way mistook the grill flames for a fire in the place and BOTH people called the fire dept. Oh well, better safe then sorry.