Well, we seem to be getting the tag end of what was once Hurricane Katrina (and boy am I glad it’s only the tag end) as it’s been raining fairly steadily since I left for work just over 5 hours ago, and it’s hellishly humid.
Wondering why I was semi-quoting Buffy?
See above about the current humidity, and take my word for it (backed by a number of fire captains) that high humidity can activate heat detectors that are meant to detect fires. In other words, they set off the fire alarms.
So, there I was, sitting at the desk and updating my report with the details of my first patrol, getting ready to think about going on my second one… when the fire alarms go off. I race down to the secondary fire panel to find out where the alarm is located, then wait for the fire trucks to get there. I take them down, they find that there’s no fire and a detector has just gone off, and we reset the main panel. Then I come back up to the desk, and they leave.
So, I’m working on finishing that part of my report, and starting the part about the fire alarm… When, 8 minutes after I returned to the desk, don’t the bloody alarms start going again!
So, repeat the previous activities (pretty much exactly). This time, however, I had the monitoring company put our system on “Test”, and arrange a Fire Watch (someone driving by to check out the building every hour or so).
So, no more alarms tonight… but boy, did I ever get my exercise! (The main panel is down four flights of stairs from my desk, and all the way across the building…) And then, I still had to do my delayed second patrol… *sigh*
Oh well… it’s over and done with, the incident report is done, and I’m settled. But I just hope my relief gets here on time, as opposed to the ten minutes late that has become usual… (he usually does the afternoon shift).
Okay, rant/ramble over…
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