[me*me*me]

David came into the den a little while ago and said "I think we should
get ready to evacuate the building. I smell smoke in the living room
and there's a shitload of firetrucks outside." I glanced out the living
room window and he was right, plus they had the ladder up on one of the
trucks. On the better-safe-than-sorry principle (and it *was* time to
take Fidget out anyway), we gathered up Fidget, wallets, keys, phones,
and my Palm IIIc, and headed out into the hall.

The fire alarm hadn't actually gone off (someone has to pull one of the
little red switches) so we were wondering if we could get away with
taking the elevator, but as we were thinking about it it arrived and we
could quite clearly smell smoke in it. Nope, not a good idea.

So once again the denizens chez Vail-Starn got to troop down eleven
flights of stairs to exit the building. The human denizens are still
dealing with the tail end of a nasty chest cold, so it was more of a
challenge than it might have been otherwise; on the other hand, this
being the case, we didn't want to take any chance of breathing more
smoke than we had to.

Got outside and there were lots of firemen milling around, and at least
six fire-related vehicles of various sorts. We were trying to figure
out where the problem was. The ladder goes up to the ninth floor, so I
figured that's where the fire was. But then we saw smoke and some water
coming out of the apartment above it, on the tenth floor, and then the
face of a fireman at the window. Apparently they had put it out
already. Whew!

No one was hurt (that I know of). The guy whose apartment we think it
was was out and had apparently taken his dog with him. There may be
water damage in the apartment below it, but if it's like the last fire,
the fire department managed to run all the water down the stairwell
rather than letting it soak through the ceiling into the apartment below
(there was *zero* damage to the apartment below the last one, which came
as a very pleasant surprise to its owner).

When we came back in, there was a huge puddle forming at the bottom of
the stairwell on that side of the building. But luckily the elevators
were back in service. They smelled a bit smoky, and probably will for a
few days, but otherwise everything seems to be OK. I hope the guy's
apartment wasn't damaged too badly, but the fire department seems to
have gotten on it so quickly that it has to be less damaged than the
last one, which was completely gutted.

Other DC residents and anyone else who reads the Washington City Paper
are probably going to be surprised that the fire department got here
that quickly. But apparently they take *anything* from this building as
being incredibly serious because of its height and its age.

Kevin, reporting live from the Cairo. Back to you, Chet!
--
Found Poetry (_Science News_, 14-Jun-2003): oldest _homo sapiens_ find
+-----------------------------------------+ ocean eddies' far-flung effects;
| Kevin Michael Vail | superior threads spun
+-----------------------------------------+ the pox from prairie dogs.