First off we are all ok! We're pretty tired & a bit shaken up but completely fine.
Our night:
James and I were getting ready for bed just before 11PM. The Building fire alarm/ emergency evacuation alarm went off in the hallways. Because we had experienced a fire alarm evacuation when we first got here, we had talked about what we would do in another situation like that. We also have to plan for the fact that I am a Resident Advisor, so once James & the kids are safely outside I have duties to fulfill like evacuating the building and helping the Firefighters around to the places they need to get. Let me just tell you how proud I am of how efficiently we handled everything. And I would suggest you talk to your partner & kids about what you would do in certain emergency situations!
Ok, back to the story. We immediately got dressed, I went to the door to check the hallway and see what was going on. There was nothing that I could see so we weren't really alarmed but because I need to be able to help evacuate the building we continued to get the kids ready. Honestly it's better to act like it's an emergency because if it was really dangerous, time counts. WIthin three minutes the alarm paused and as soon as it stopped we both froze and looked at each other. I told James I would go see what was going on and he continued to get the kids ready. We live on the opposite side of the building as the lifts so as I walked towards the stairs & lift I could smell smoke and feel heat and one corner of our level was completely filled with smoke. I ran back to the room and told James there really was a fire and there was already smoke in the hallway. We grabbed the stuff we needed and left our apartment. At the stairwell I left James & the kids, they went down & headed outside where I would meet them across the street on the lawn of the State Library.
The first thing I did was run around to every door on my floor, pounding on it and telling them that there was a fire and the building needed to be evacuated. One guy opened his door and said, "so, we need to go outside then?". I was like umm yeah, there's a fire..... come on people! lol
Then I went downstairs and helped keep people organized & calm as they left, giving them instructions on where to go, There were several dramatic moments where A woman on the 11th had accidentally gotten locked out of her room and her baby was still inside (Mom & baby are ok, some smoke inhalation issues but not seriously hurt. The RA that went up to get the baby did end up getting sick from inhaling too much smoke. He's a HERO!!)
It was crazy. People crying & screaming which was totally out of control, we had to stop people trying to get back to their rooms when they realized that their belongings might really be lost in a fire. Friends that were panicking because they couldn't find so&so. The worst part was the smoke was everywhere from the 1st floor to the 14th so they just didn't know where the fire was. In some areas it was so thick you couldn't see anything.
The sprinkler system in Nandos ( a restaurant on the ground floor of our building) was activated so the ground floor had 3 inches of water flowing already by the time I got down there. The water was oily because it was running over all the Nandos kitchen stuff, so people kept falling. It was intense at the time but now that we know everyone is safe I can't help but laugh at the people who were SUPER dramatic.
So the other RA's and Unilodge employees and I did the best we could to evacuate the building and when the firefighters were ready to take over we went outside and waited.
James and I had grabbed the boys' jackets and a blanket for each of them. Outside a family with a little boy a bit younger than Declan hadn't grabbed anything warm enough for their little guy, so James gave them Declan's jacket and we wrapped Declan up in his blanket. It was getting cold, especially for the kids so we went to Hungry Jacks a block down and had coffee & hot chocolate. We were back into our building around 1:30AM. We put the boys to bed and I went back down and helped get people back to their rooms. Many of the residents had lost their keys and the power was still out so the hallways were pitch black. I don't think I actually got back to our apartment until almost 4AM.
The power in our apt was still on the but most of the buildings main power, the TV's and the internet were all out until this evening. The building reeks of smoke and burnt chemicals. The ground floor is still soppy but they're trying to dry it out.
I've just returned from the briefing with our building manager Kerrie. The exhaust above the Nando's cook stove had caught on fire. The fire traveled all the way up the exhaust 14 floors to the top of our building where it's supposed to empty out into the air. The roof caught on fire as well and luckily the firefighters were able to contain it all before it spread but they said it was seconds from catching the engine room of the lifts and if it had there could've been a small explosion and the fire could've gotten out of control.
We are so thankful that everything turned out alright and there have been lots of funny stories shared. One of our friends took a few snaps with her iPhone and she's promised to email them to me so as soon as she does I'll put them up.
So yeah. It was a crazy night.
