It's early in the morning. The whole house is sleeping (except for me and the dad who already left for work.) The dog isn't barking. The cat is quiet. All is peaceful.
And then it starts: the town siren. Alerting all available EMT's, Paramedics and everyone else who is within ear shot that there is an emergency. It sounds like a Pearl Harbor reenactment. Or like a tornado touched down in the town square. Or like bombs are coming. It's an eery and uncomfortable sound. And loud.
I understand pain and I have compassion for people who are in need of help. But seriously. ME listening to the siren is doing that poor soul no good -- I can't jump in my car and screech away in an effort to get to their side immediately.
And neither can my kids. Even with noise makers (a device that makes white noise which is a necessary sound barrier when you live in a small house with more people than bedrooms) inches from their heads, some of the kids still stir restlessly/wake up. That siren is loud.
The dog starts in on it too the second the siren starts to go off. Howling like a wolf howls to the moon, she's out there making as much racket as the siren.
I don't get it why they can't upgrade to pagers or some other polite form of communication. I mean, it is the twenty-first-century. Surely there are alarm systems that would be less intrusive by now.
Because, it never fails that when my children are sleeping, that siren goes off.
(Maybe that's why it goes off...?)
Hmmm, that could be. Coincidence can't happen that often, can it?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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2 comments:
What time did the alarm go off? In 1970 I was teaching in a bedroom town of Des Moines, Altoona. The volunteer firemen were alerted by a similar siren just 2 blocks from my apartment. I agree with you that there should be some more updated method. I think that then it was so there wouldn't have to be so many phone calls made and waste so much time. Pagers sound good. The expense of that would probably have to be taken out of some of your local taxes. Since it is done by volunteers, there would be a longer list of people who would volunteer than would be needed at any given fire. It would be costly. Not that I'm defending your warning system, because I know how something like that can disrupt a bunch of us human and animal creatures.
I only taught one year. It was 6th grade. One thing I learned. You can tell if there is a storm coming by watching the behavior of the kids. They get very restless and don't pay attention as well. Nice to have that siren for tornado warnings. Hope you get a better night's sleep.
how close/far do you live from the fire station? my area does have pagers, but we're going through a transition from voice-only pagers to digital read-only pagers. and here i thought we were slow and behind the ball in central PA!! :) we have an alarm bell, i know, but it doesn't work... i live too far to hear it anyway. :(
i'm sorry the accidents have such bad timing, lol. :) i'm sure there's some way you could perhaps get in touch with the governing agency there and find out if there are plans to upgrade to individual pagers. at least that would be light at the end of a tunnel?
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