火事と水害に要注意

I went to bed at around 3am this morning after chatting with bro and Neko-tan, only to be woken up at 7:20am by the fire alarm, the 2nd I've experienced since I moved in here.

I was kinda hesitant at first whether to actually go out or not, especially since the 1st fire alarm last year was a false alarm and it was -13°C this morning. After about 20 minutes, I forced the cat out from under the bed and stuffed him into the carrying cage, and started the trek downstairs.

Long story short, it turned out to be a broken sprinkler in the basement that triggered the fire alarm. The super had to shut the water system for the whole building down and waited for the repair guy to come. However, since the water system was down, the internal emergency system was kept up and prohibited the use of the elevators.

After waiting around in the lobby for half an hour while the super tried to get someone to tell him how to override the system to at least get the elevators going, I decided to attempt the climb upstairs.

Accompanied by another guy I met at the lobby who's one floor above me, we scooped up our respective furry companions (him with a dog and me with a cat) and took up the challenge.

We took a short breather on the 10th floor before continuing to the 16th floor, by which time I could hardly feel my legs and right arm that was carrying the cat cage. Unfortunately for the guy, his unit can only be accessed via the elevators or through the roof, but the doors to the roof were locked, so he had to go all the way down to talk to the super, who was stuck in the lobby telling people that there's no water.

Just as I ventured downstairs again for church an hour later, the super emerged from the basement and got off the phone. He's finally able to get the elevators back working. At least I wouldn't need to climb up 16 floors when I returned.

Thankfully, the water pipe seemed to be fixed up by the time I returned a couple hours later. Everything's back to normal again.

Apparently the building at the end of our street had to evacuate everyone (with buses, I heard) last week when it was -30~-40°C because of a burst pipe in the penthouse, which subsequently drenched the whole building and caused something like a million dollars of damage.

And the building next door had a broken pipe yesterday, too.

It really can be dangerous when the temperature gets too cold and freezes the pipes. I have water damage coverage for my house insurance, but that's something I wish I never need to claim.