If you drove past a store - when it is closed - and you saw a strong blinking strobe light, would you know what it is? What if you saw it coming from 3 closed/out of business shops in a small strip mall?
The strobe is the visible portion of the building fire alarm. As part of the American's with Disabilities Act (ADA), fire alarms in public buildings need to include a visible alert (to accommodate the deaf).
I pulled into the parking lot and there wasn't any visible smoke or fire from any of the 4 shops (this strip mall is the local 'strip mall of death'. When the economy tanked, businesses starting going under esp in this strip mall. A Italian restaurant opened there around the first of the year - and I don't know if it is going to make it). I called the property management firm listed in the window. The on-call manager didn't have this property on his list, so he didn't know who to call.
Next step - trying to find a non-emergency number for the Fire Department. And that was more of a challenge than you might think. The building was on the edge of two different jurisdictions (and I couldn't find the non-emerg number for the jurisdiction I thought it was going to be). So I finally just called 911. I explained the dispatcher what was going on and she got it to the right department (not the one I was originally expecting).
About 5 minutes later - an Engine pulled up w/ full lights and sirens going. I waited for the officer to get out - and told him that I was the one who called it in, but didn't see anything wrong. I couldn't in good conscience just walk away if there was a potential for something to be wrong.
[I had reason to be concerned. About a mile down the road, a house that had been converted to a car stereo shop - which went out of business - burned to the ground in suspicious circumstances less than a year ago.]
The crew spent a good 20 minutes walking around the building, looking in each shop (from the outside). They went into the fire alarm control room where they reset the alarm - and it came right back on. They tried to get into each shop to check, but the fire panel only had keys for 1 of the 4 shops in it.
They were able to get in touch w/ the alarm company - but even they were having trouble getting in touch with anyone who seemed to care about this building. They finally called their Chief after checking everything they could - and got the OK to leave it as they found it. With the Strobes continuing to flash.
I drove past the next day - and to no real surprise - the building was still standing. But I couldn't tell if the strobes were still going.
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