Good to know, good to know

On Sunday night, my first night home from our Thanksgiving trip, five or six screaming fire engines and another vehicle that looked like it probably conveyed the chief of the fire department showed up on our street. There were so many trucks they lined the entire street, and in fact one was parked so as to block one end of the street. Firemen and women were swarming everyone, getting out hoses and cranes, laddering themselves into the top window of a neighboring building. Ambulances and police cars also showed up. Bystanders crowded to watch, and this never happens in our quiet, quiet neighborhood. Two huddled people hugged each other for emotional support in a driveway.

Needless to say, I was worried. I called the SF Fire Department's non-emergency number to find out what was going on, hoping not to be too annoying to them since they were obviously in the middle of a monumental crisis. "Hi, I'm sorry to bother you," I said, "but I am in an apartment next door to a building that's getting a huge response from the fire department, and I was wondering if there was any danger to the buildings around."

"You must be at 45th street," said the very nice, patient fire department man. This did not bode well, I thought, my chest tightening with panic as I prepared to hear that there was a massive bomb threat coming from the neighboring building (this was my best theory, since I didn't see any fire or smell any smoke when I put my head out the window).

The patient fire department men then explained to me that this massive response was actually the standard response for any call of perceived smoke in a building, and that, in reality, this was the MINIMAL number of emergency vehicles that would show up. He said they were having trouble finding the source of the smoke and that it would probably turn out to be nothing. Five minutes later, they were all gone.

I feel so much safer now.