Fire Alarm and Emergency Preparedness

Yesterday Robert and I were home and we heard someone else's fire alarm going off in the building. We noticed that the alarm wasnt stopping. We thought how strange that was and then the entire buildings siren went off. They were so so loud. Daveney was asleep only 40 min when this happened it scared her to death. She didnt cry but her eyes and facial expression made us really worried for her.  We left our apartment and we could smell and see smoke in the hall.

Many of the residents were waiting outside (snowing) looking puzzled trying to find out if someone knew why the alarm had gone off. Everyone said it wasnt them. Which we thought was strange because we had heard someones alarm going off.

Luckily we had friends that lived a couple buildings down so we headed over there to seek warmth. Robert left Davz and I to stay warm while he went back to our building to see what had happened. by the time he returned there were two fire engines, some police and other officials there. It seemed like it took them a long time to arrive. Robert called saying we could come back home.

Our neighbor that lives below us had just returned from a vacation and she turned up her furnace really high. Supposedly the the drastic change in temperature caused the furnace to overheat and set on fire. One of the blessings we received was that the sprinkler in the furnace cupboard went off and calmed the fire. A firefighter told me that if the sprinkler had not extinguished the fire it would have been our apartment that would have been burt and in flames. The furnace is right next to the front door so the flames from her furnace would have reached our furnace (which would have blown up) and then our only exit would have been blocked by fire, we would have been trapped in our home.

Our apartment smelled like smoke for the rest of the day. But that was not that bad, considering that all of our family was safe and sound.

Well, after all of that commotion it was time to start making dinner. I went to the faucet to fill a pot with water to boil and to our surprise the water had been turned off. I called the management and asked how much longer it would be. they said only 3 more hours. bummer. I didnt know what else to cook for dinner. I really needed water, especially for thawing our baby's milk that we keep frozen. When a little worry was about to hit me like a falling mountain on my head i remembered when my mom came to help us with daveney when she was born. We had just used up a gallon of bleach and i was about to throw away the bottle.

My mom knew and taught me that i could reuse the bottle to store water as food storage. BRILLIANT!  So i went to the laundry room to find it and there it was, just waiting to be used. When i opened the bottle i smelled the water to make sure it was alright. I didnt smell a thing, not even bleach. I felt good about using the water. So dinner went on and I was able to feed our baby too.

My testimony has increased in having food storage. I am grateful for my mom who has taken the time to learn how to properly store food and water. And Im so glad that she saw an opportunity to help us grow our little food storage. I feel that this lesson has come to us in just the right time. Just the other day I was telling my friends how i thought it would be too expensive to start a food storage now and that i especially did not want to move it when when it was time to move again. it just seemed like a lot of "storage" and space taken up. I am humbled and now feel more than ever to start our little storage. though it might be small i know it will add up over time and that it will become great.

How blessed we are to have great council from our prophet and leaders to be prepared. My new hobby with be learning about Emergency preparedness.  I dont want my family to suffer for my not listening to the prophets of God.