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Speaking of those totally tubular devices that firemen use, here's a good textbook story about emergency response in San Francisco. I found myself fleeing a building with about 250 other dazed San Franciscans yesterday. Someone activated the fire alarm in the building where I've set up shop, causing pandemonium and sending its residents (including me) pouring out into the streets. As I evacuate, I notice a smoky stench and decide to call 911. Here is the unofficial transcript of my call to our super-efficient response grid:
911: 911, is this an emergency?
Daniel: Yes! (or why the fuck would I be callling 911 from a cell phone, lady !?!)
911: What's the emergency?
Daniel: There's a fire alarm that's sounding in my building, and everyone's evacuating. We're at the corner of **** and Jones.
911: Well, do you smell smoke? Where are you now?
Daniel: Yep, I smell a strange stench through the whole room. I'm about to leave my room.
911: Do you see fire or smell smoke?
Daniel: No fire but we're smelling steam or something burning.
911: What's your address?
Daniel: I really don't know the address, but it's at the corner of ***** and Jones! There are also two blind people in my hallway trying ...
911: Just a second sir.
Daniel: OK.
911: Huh? Oh.
Daniel: What?
911: Well OK, I'll send someone to check it out.
(Call terminated.)
Only three minutes and 30 seconds elapse, and a total of seven (count them, seven!) fire trucks with over forty firemen come barreling down the streets and assault the building from every direction. This must be the "someone" that the dispatcher was talking about. Firemen leap out and start unreeling multiple hoses, some come up to the building and ask if we've seen smoke or fire, and others uncap the fire valves on the sides to prepare for the worst. After about 20 of them stuff into the building and climb the staircases, a chief looks at the rusty old alarm monitor and yells to the rest that it was just a burglar alarm.
More like a fire alarm that doubles as a burglar alarm. We ALL thought it was a fire alarm, and that's why 250 of us were standing on the sidewalk! Well, that was one hell of an expensive false alarm, as the owner is sure to be paying some VERY hefty fines. So it turned out that the seven fire trucks and their 40+ workers were mobilized as the result of my call, since the prehistoric alarm system couldn't ring the SFFD. How flattering to think that my little cell phone call launched a massive suppression force that cost the city over ,000. I do hope that they recover it all in penalties and fines. And what about the rank smell that I detected? It turns out that it was the building's old boiler heating element kicking on for the evening, which pumps a brief cindery stench throughout the eight story building. Oops!
I then look down at my Sprint PCS phone to find it in some kind of steroid emergency mode with a "Priority Bandwidth" message. My, the hidden talents of our little cell phones! I can't turn off the steroid 911 feature, so I rip out the battery and replace it. That was enough excitement for one evening, so I spent the rest of it at the Borders store studying all the latest programming guides (and a few hot men in the upstairs cafe). The first book that caught my eye was a picture book of SF's Great 1906 Earthquake and Fire.
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