Update
Chaos and loss
Good morning, folks. It is the start of a new week and for me, the chaos has kicked into high gear. I have just lost another neighbor and fellow veteran. The second one this year. And yesterday, where I live had to deal with frozen water pipes that burst and another actual fire, up on the third floor.
We have no maintenance staff at the moment, and the only person here who remembers (mostly) those important things like what the valve lineups are for isolating water in different parts of the building. The tired old man who can’t walk having to show the fire department how to align the valves to isolate the leaks and the 3rd floor fire header.
Right now, we have water again, in most of the building. We have fire watches stationed because there is no fire suppression system on the 3rd floor, and we have a remediation company cleaning up the water on all three floors with hopes that the wall damage will be limited.
And I feel for the staff, which right now is just the property manager and the office manager, taking turns covering fire watch up on the 3rd floor and handling the office at the same time.
There is one major source of help for them. We are all veterans here. We may be disabled, but we step up when needed. Those with the mobility for it are assisting the office with anything and everything that is needed. Mopping, cleaning, standing fire watch, checking on residents to make sure that they are okay and in some cases, swapping out oxygen bottles for residents on the 3rd floor that are on oxygen and have no power in their apartments.
They are also helping residents without mobility charge their power chairs. It is who we are. When the shit hits the fan, we all step up. Even though none of us are being paid for it.
A little note here. All of this started with frozen water pipes and work to replace our entire HVAC system. From that, the fire alarms went off due to flow detection in the 3rd floor fire sprinkler system. For which a resident veteran on the 3rd floor evacuated the building along with the rest of the building. That resident forgot to take food off the stove, which resulted in a fire in his kitchen while the building was evacuated. Which triggered the already leaking fire sprinkler system on the 3rd floor.
From there, the insanity grew. Smoke on the 3rd floor, adding to the confusion since there was already a leak in the 3rd floor sprinkler header.
As I said, chaos. We handled it. Life goes on. Mostly.