jersey city excitement

Yesterday the fire alarm went off at work. Luckily we received the reassuring message- please stand by while we determine the nature of the fire. Hmm. Please stand by... I work on the 28th floor of a building with thousands of people and 2 stairwells. Hmmm. Usually the guy gets on with his super cool Carribean (Jamaican? see footnote) accent and says- this is a test of the system. But stand by while we assess the nature of the alarm? Not as reassuring. Coffee sounds good right about now.

So I headed down in the elevator- still running since there is as yet no determination made of a fire- and heard pieces of stories in the elevator- planes and fighter jets and circling. Before I made it to the coffeeshop I saw the masses standing outside and decided to check it out.

A plane was circling the building with fighter jets tailing it closely and it had gone twice around our buildings. People had come down even before the fire alarm. They were trying to call colleagues still inside to tell them to evacuate. One woman came up to me in a panic because she could not get through to whomever she was calling. Ambulances and fire trucks racing, sirens competing.

All of the tall buildings in Jersey City had crowds of people piling out, everyone calling or talking or silently questioning.

Long story short, announcements were made that it was a military exercise. Soon police cars were circling announcing on their loudspeakers that it was safe, merely a military exercise, time to get back to work, nothing to see here. It was at this point that I realized my emotions were high.

Here's an article from the NY Times. This building is across the street from mine- it's a beautiful art deco building, by the way.

A coffee and chocolate croissant later, having exchanged some words from the Arabs in the coffeeshop, and I went back to the routine of the day.

Idiots. Even if there was a legitimate reason why there was no prior announcement, they could at least have announced it 5 minutes before. Something. Lucky no one had a heart attack out of fear or something

(footnote: I find it amusing when announcers on the PA system have heavy accents- I mean this in the best of ways- eg the announcer at Union Station in DC has a very, very heavy French accent. It's funny because we all know it's nearly impossible to ever understand anything being said on the PA system. And on top of that it's like they are deliberately screwing with us by adding another layer of difficulty.)