More Red, White, & Blue Lights Than Our Christmas Decorations

[Bird]

About 6 p.m., it was already dark, and my wife went out the front door to put a sheet over some of her potted plants for the night. But when she walked out, there were police cars with their emergency lights on in front of the house and an officer walked up to her and asked, "Did you call to report a fire in your backyard?" Turned out there were already 4 officers in our backyard, and of course, no fire. He called the dispatcher on his radio and the dispatcher confirmed that whoever called said there was a fire in the backyard and did give our address. Anyway, we had 4 police cars and 3 fire trucks here for awhile. The only thing I can think of is that we live in a suburb of Denton and there is a street in Denton with the same name, and one dispatch center handles calls for both, so maybe they dispatched the wrong department. Since we're on friendly terms with all our neighbors and have never had any kind of conflict since we've lived here, I don't think anyone would be deliberately sending the emergency vehicles here as a prank, although I guess a kid could have called and just gave the first address that came to mind.

 

[Matt_Jr]

Oops. Hope the other house gets their backyard fire put out before.. well.. you know.

Is it possible for the dispatcher to trace where the call came from?

 

[Bird]

Matt, I really don't know much about that emergency dispatch center, but surely they have caller ID with their 911 system (don't they all now?), so they should know where the call came from at least.

 

[Thomas]

Glad it turn out to be nothing Bird...whew..title attention getter.

Maybe todays local paper offer more info.

 

[Egon]

Must have brought back memories Bird.

 

[Bird]

Must have brought back memories Bird.

Yep, Egon, I don't think they do it anymore in Dallas, but when I was working the streets, we answered all calls with the firemen.

 

[jinman]

Oh boy! Now the rumors will fly and you'll be tagged as the rowdy guy in the neighborhood.

Glad it was a false alarm, but it sure is curious why they came to your house.

 

[Egon]

it sure is curious why they came to your house

Jinman, wasn't there an earlier mention of potted plants?? He he

 

[jimmyj]

Ha ha ha on the potted plants!!

Bird, it's worrysome that emergency services can get homes mixed up. We have had that here. I will use fake numbers but our road is a number not a name. Also, our house number is prefaced by a letter that identifies what town the fire services respond from.

Example: House is S1234 sideroad 20

Now to add to that, the town also names some sideroads that same as others but distinguishes them with a letter. Thus, the road next to ours is sideroad 20 and our road is sideroad 20A.

And, they use the SAME house numbers. Thus, there is a house numbered 1234 on both Sideroad 20 and on 20A. See where I am going.....


So, we live at S1234, Sideroad 20A
On the next road there is a house C1234, Sideroad 20

Our mail and stuff gets mixed up all the time. The other folks do a bad job of giving our directions so we get the limo for the kids prom, we get their pool service, their mail, their magazines, you name it.

Crazy but scary. If your story was about a serious emergency it could be the difference between life and death.

 

[Bird]

Yep, Jimmy, it can get confusing, and small mistakes in addresses can add to it, then you need to learn the Post Office abbreviations. We used to live at 18872 Northwest County Road 3360. Acceptable Post Office abbreviations were 18872 NW CR 3360, but of course there could also be a NE, SE, and SW County Road 3360 in another part of the county.

Since I live less than a quarter mile from our police station, I may stop by this next week and see if they traced the phone call. I'm inclined to think it was likely kids playing.

And yes, my wife has a couple of large potted plants (some kind of flowers in the Spring) that she covers with an old sheet at night if she thinks we might have a freeze or frost. We don't have the snow like the northeast is getting, but it did get down to 23 early this morning. Instead of moving snow, I raked leaves yesterday; filled 5 big contractor bags as tight as I could pack them.