Warning....Warning....

I woke up this morning to sirens going off outside to warn us of severe thunderstorms. It reminded me that I have not blogged about our other warning experience from a few days ago. I believe it was Tuesday that I came home and decided I was going to take a little nap before going to pick up Michael from band camp. I was laying in bed watching TV, almost asleep when all of a sudden our smoke alarms started going off. They staring beeping loudly and saying "warning, carbon monoxide...warning, carbon monoxide". We have a smoke detector in every room of the house so you can imagine how loud it was. I didn't panic, I figured it was probably a low battery since that seems to be the trend in housing. I asked the two boys who were home with me if the they had a headache or were feeling extra tired and they both said no.

I called housing and just asked them if I should be concerned or if I should continue thinking it was just a low battery. They told me to go ahead and take the boys outside and they would send someone right over to check it out. I got the boys and the dogs outside and we waited...and waited...and waited. In case you haven't been watching the weather all over the country, it's HOT! High 90's with the heat index often in the 100's. (I probably should make friends with my neighbors so I can send my kids over there in situations like this, haha) Yeah..so I started to think...we might be safe from carbon monoxide but we're all going to have heat stroke. After almost 40 minutes I decided to call the fire safety desk (not 911) and just ask them if they thought I should be concerned since my alarms had been going off for so long. I told them that we all felt okay and that I thought it was just low battery. The guy told me that when the smoke alarms go off like that, even if housing came to check it out they would call the Fire Department to come and check anyway (which they had not at that point). A few minutes later, this truck showed up!
The firemen were very nice and didn't treat me like an idiot. They checked the house and said everything was fine but you can't be too careful, especially when you are dealing with kids. About 10 minutes after they showed up, housing showed up. They replaced all of our smoke detectors with ones that say low battery instead of warning.

It was quite the adventure but I wasn't going to risk harm to my children or my dogs!