Fire in the building
One morning just after Olya had left for work, there was announcement in the hall speakers. ”There is an emergency in one of the Units, please stay in your unit until further notice”. A few minutes later the fire alarm started, followed by another announcement ”There is a fire in one of our units, please go to the nearest emergency exit, and gather at the assembly point”. So first thing first, pick up Mark and put him in the baby carrier. What more to bring? Laptop, snus and passports? Then someone is ringing our bell, I open the door, and there is one of the cleaning staff, holding a note. I glance at it, but don’t really read it, and run around for a bit to pick up everything, but I end up only bringing the snus with me. The adrenaline has kicked in and the heart beats faster. Me and Mark run out, and the cleaning staff is showing us to go down the stairs. Have I mentioned we live on the 19th floor? And for the people who don’t know me, I lack the skills of walking down the stairs. So we walk down slowly and carefully, step by step, and for some reason I snap a photo of ous, which I had forgot I did until writing this post.
When we got to the third floor, there is one of our guards standing there smiling. I immediately understand that there is no real fire, he shows us the note that the cleaning staff had shown us before. It was stating that this is a fire drill, and if you want, you can stay home, but that they would be glad if you participated. I calmed down a bit mentally, because physically we were not really running down the stairs anyways.
When we got down all the way to the ground floor, we were passed by some fire fighters carrying a staff member in a stretcher. And I wish I had took a picture of this, because the staff member that was lying on the stretcher, took his job seriously, he was really playing unconscious.
At the assembly point, which is on the street, all the staff had assembled, holding a note with floor numbers. So, we went to the staff member with our floor number and a water was served to Mark, with a straw.
At this point all the attention was drawn away from the fire drill, and instead drawn to Mark. All the staff members wanted pictures with him individually. Ignoring the fact that he is strapped on me in his baby carrier. In return, I asked them for a group photo, note that none of the women participated in that photo.
So, what did I learn of this: First of all, read all notes that are handed to you.
Second, You need to do fire drills, because if this thing was real, we had been stranded on the street with nothing else but a package of snus, no money and no passports, the aftermath would have been a mess. After the drill you have an understanding on how important stuff must be organized in the home, so you can pick it up at an emergency. Then that the drawback of living on the 19th floor with an awesome view, is that there will be a lot of stairs involved in a case of an emergency. We also learned that Mark can drink water from a straw.
