anticipationI planned on being at home tonite but got a call from a friend asking if I would be at the local pub. So I wrapped things up and went down to visit with her for a couple of hours. I told her about my Valentine's "Fire Dog" gift and she got a good laugh out of it (or was it my shimmying in my seat immitating the dalmation swiveling his hips and flashing, LOL!).
Not long after sirens went past the bar - not unusual, station 17 is 2 blocks away.
http://www.chattanooga.gov/Fire_Department/78_Station17.htm
She went outside for a cigarette smoke and returned commenting that another engine, some cops, and an ambulance went past as well. I told her it just meant there was either an alarm at an apartment complex or the nursing home or hospital a couple of miles up the road. Any call to a 'multiple occupancy' building results in a full assignment of ladders (2), engines(4), squads(1), and ambulances(2).
5 minutes more passed when a sudden rush of several more fire trucks went past verifying my prediction.
A minute later a customer who had just left called the bar on his cell phone : "if anyone up there lives in Signal View Condos, they might want to know there's a big fire there". The bartender relayed the message and eyes went to me, I live at Signal View. I continued to drink my beer which upset some folk who were now rushing outside to see what they could see from 2 blocks away. I told my friend 1) you came in and said more fire trucks went past but said nothing of smelling smoke or seeing glow in the sky (my thinking being that if it was a big fire, it would require a 2nd alarm resulting in yet another group of fire trucks to scream past) 2) the caller said the fire was in the back of the complex but there's no way he knows that, he could only see the engines turn into the driveway 3) WHAT COULD I POSSIBLY DO?
I'm a fire fighter with no gear. My camera is sitting on the sofa. I can't go into the complex cause if all those engines and ladders and ambulances just turned in, the driveway will be blocked by hoses if not police. If it IS burning down, I'm gonna stand in the cold and watch?
I had 2 more beers and quietly smiled as I heard the rumble of fire trucks returning to the station a half hour later - hardly a sign there was a significant fire.
But when I paid my tab, grabbed my Merv's burger, and headed home, I went via the rear of the complex, and found nothing, each corner I turned, my shoulders relaxed a little more, and when I finally had circled back around to my side of the complex and saw no evidence of water in the streets, no emergency vehicles, and not even any dual tire tracks through puddles from earlier rain, THEN, I was able to to tell myself : "I told you so!"
