robo-fire?

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Just got woken up by the robo-dialer call about a multi-alarm fire in Somerville... anyone have a locale on this? Gonna be hard to get back to sleep not knowing any details, what with having people I care about all throughout this city.

Wicked Local (ie Somerville Journal) has An alert has been sent out by the city of Somerville of a multiple-alarm fire now in progress.

More as we have it. Yeah. got that.

This is not very different from having someone call screaming "Oh My GOD!" then hanging up.


ETA: edmokeski added this handy link to Som. Fire Scanner in a comment in another post:
http://www.somervillelocal76.org/index.cfm?zone=/unionactive/view_page.cfm&page=Live20Scanner20Feed

Comments

[aquaflame16.livejournal.com]

I got the call too. Really weird.
It seems like maybe they sent it to the wrong group or something, cuz it seemed like more of the kind of message directed to people who have some kind of professional involvement or something rather than something that should have gone out generally.

I do think it said "multiple alarm" though, not "multiple home". not that that changes things much. Rather hard to understand that computer voice!

I do hope everyone involved is okay!

I tried to call 311 (is that even answered at night?) to see what was going on (i.e. why I was receiving this call) and just got a busy signal.

[jcgentry.livejournal.com]

I got the e-mail also... The complete text is:

Hello. This is the Somerville Fire Department reporting a multiple alarm fire in progress now. If you are required, contact Somerville Fire Alarm at 617-623-1700 to confirm receipt of this message.
Repeating. This is the Somerville Fire Department reporting a multiple alarm fire in progress now. If you are required, contact Somerville Fire Alarm at 617-623-1700 to confirm receipt of this message.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

"multiple alarm" though, not "multiple home"

pretty much the same thing in a city this densely built up.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

DAMMIT, SOMERVILLE, you finally drunk-dialed me in the middle of the night and it wasn't even with tom champion's voice.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

mornin', babe. :) seems to be just up the hill from you.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah. it's close, but i'm not sure it's close enough to warrant a robocall. and of the folks who have posted about getting the call (and i know where they live), i'm the closest.

did they call the whole city? that seems... excessive. i was wondering if they'd called just folks within the same ward or within some distance, but i guess not.

i know someone who does live up there, tho, so i may go check it out and see if they're okay.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

might wanna take up some spare blankets up if you're going anyway. Just got "six adults needing Red Cross assistance" and "Red Cross says an hour to respond" off the scanner.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

happily, most of the folks are in the lobby of the big brick apartment complex across the street, and there are some folks outside with blankets.

good news: no injuries.

What scanner model do you have?

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

...

Re: What scanner model do you have?

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

a Dell Latitude. ;-)

[ron_newman]

where is 'up there' ?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

sorry, more details, including location, in my "eyewitness report from the scene" post around 0500. the fire was at the corner of walnut and highland.

i live down the hill near the pearl/medford/school intersections, so it's all uphill from here. :-)

[ron_newman]

Thanks. So now I wonder, why would they call me way over on Day Street?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

the city is very densely built up, and fire can spread without warning, leaping from house to house until the entire city is in flames.

...

actually, i think that either the robocall only knows how to call EVERYONE or else it was mistakenly told to call everyone instead of one or two wards.

[ron_newman]

I got the phone call too, at 3:50 am. I was too sleepy to register much more than "big fire in your neighborhood". I opened the window and looked out, but didn't see or hear or smell any fire or fire engines, so I tried to get back to sleep.

Returning the call to 617-628-7669 this morning only got me an outdated recording from October about routine gas line maintenance on Springfield Street.

Where was it?

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

> Where was it?

See the previous two posts.

[einzelein.livejournal.com]

3:45. I heard far-away sirens a moment later, and then again about ten minutes later. I hope everyone's ok.