False Alarm

At 8:30pm last night, I had one of those "only in the movies" experience... the fire alarm in our apartment went off and it was so loud and I got so scared!

I was in my pajamas and my husband was watching the hornets and spurs game when the alarm went off, the first thing I asked my husband was: What is that?? he peeked into the door and checked what was happening.. and then I asked him: are we suppose to go out?? Then it sank in to me that the alarm was a fire alarm, so with my bedroom sleepers, I pulled my husband, took my wallet and off we go out of our apartment.

Two minutes after, the sound of sirens were around and four fire trucks, two police car and an ambulance came. It was like a Hollywood movie, Ladder 49 of some type. The firemen were all equipped with their safety gears.. they stormed the building, checked for fire and gas leaks..

Outside the unit, a number of our neighbors were there too looking so worried wondering why the alarm rang.. I was so cold, the wind was still chilly for May, and my husband was hugging me to make sure I wont feel cold. Later on I realized, I was feeling chilly mainly because I got so tensed and worried...

After 15 minutes, the firemen came out, called it a false alarm, and a water leak from the washing machine from the tenant upstairs caused the fire alarm to ring. Thank heavens it was a false alarm.. but the stress was just too much it took me another 5 hours to finally fall asleep.. and my poor husband had to take care of me to calm me down and make sure I'll be fine..

Post mortem:

I envy the system here in America on how quick they respond to imminent dangers and emergencies. Imagine, in 5 minutes time, they firetrucks, a complete ambulance system and police cars were there in the site. The firemen were fully equipped.

In Manila, firemen could only dream of having complete equipments to combat fire. Firetrucks ran so slow that when they reach the place where the fire is, the place is almost burned down. Unfortunately too for the Filipinos, no ambulance would go with the firetrucks so if there are victims, most them end up casualties of fires.

Some of the good things in America..