I Hear the Bells

**Alternate Title: City of La Porte City Officials Need a Drink. And so do the Residents.

We live in a heavily industrial area. We're not far from the Ship Channel and we're surrounded by large refineries. With that being the case, we are used to alarms. The city has a massive shelter-in-place alarm system that will go off in the event of a chemical emergency. If you notice a large pole with what looks like discs on the top and not attached to any other electric pole - that's them! And they get tested EVERY Saturday at noon. Never fails. Noon on Saturday - those sirens are running. I think EVERY Saturday is a bit much. Why not just the first Saturday?! I mean, come on now. 

I will also add that in the almost 10 years I have lived here, they have never gone off for anything other than a test that I can remember. 

The plants themselves also have alarms that will sound in the event there is a massive accident. We have not had to hear those either. (I probably should not have said that - you think I would have learned by now.) 

And that brings us to today.

At 4:45 this morning, an alarm like we have never heard before started shaking the city. It kind of sounds like what I imagine an old time emergency vehicle from back in the day would sound like. And it's LOUD. Wakes the city, loud. Worst of all - wakes MY CHILD loud. My Beloved looks outside and can find nothing strange. 

So we do what almost every person on Earth does in 2018 to find out what is going on - we check Facebook. And sure enough, the entire city is asking the exact same question - "what the heck?!" 

Our thoughts were -- 
Should we shelter in place?
Is it a Tsunami?
Zombies?
China?
Terrorists?
Have the sirens been hijacked?
Is this a diversion?! CHECK THE BANKS!! 
Should we get in the bathtub?
Is it the Lord? Because if it is, someone translated "trumpets" ALL WRONG.

Alice thought it was a car alarm. My Beloved, "that must be some FANCY car!"

Eventually, some poor City of La Porte employee takes to social media with this....

Oh great - they don't know either. All is lost!!!

DO WE NEED TO GET IN THE TUB!?? Because our beds are warm and that sounds LAME! 

We opted to stay in bed and the city updated us an hour after their original post.

I want you to note the "it is not a tone we are familiar with" because at 6:50am, right as we were FINALLY drifting back to sleep - they went off again. 

Lord, come quickly because this will not do. 

The citizens of La Porte are dedicated to the truth and to sleep and we were all about done with this mess. 

And bless the city, they responded.

Now, let's revisit the before mentioned sentence. "It is not a tone we are familiar with." 

Um, what? 

Did you not get the manual and run through all the ringtones? That's, like, the first thing you do with a noise maker - you figure out all the noises it makes. Am I right?! "Open box. Charge it. Play with the ringtones." Now I know it's not exactly the same. But seriously!

Let me add that had they gone through the list of ringtones - this might have been a better choice to the one they have. There is NO ignoring this one! NONE! The other one? Eh.

And it is also important to note that we live right off Farrington. This siren lives in the parking lot on our side of the park we walk to. Yep.

Now some dedicated citizens are convinced there is a conspiracy going on and things are being covered up because the city has been hush, hush since their last post:

Some even offered to drive around and look for evidence of a cover-up. I mean, we were all up anyway. 

Facebook might be the devil, but sometimes it is PURE GOLD. 

So needless to say - we've been mostly up since 4:45am. We rolled into school looking a HOT MESS with all the other Hot Mess Momma's who have been awake since 4:45am. Yes, we might have had extra time to get ready; however, what will we had to do so died at about 4:45am.

It took me an hour to brew a second cup of tea because I kept forgetting what I was doing.

There might be a massive amount of errors in this post due to my lack of eye coordination. Please let me know if you catch any - I can use all the help I can get! 

I did manage to record a few seconds of the second round. It had already moved by the house so it's not at it's loudest but you get the idea.

It was an eventful morning that will probably lead to an early night. Here's hoping!

And in the event the city ever tells us the truth - you will be the first to know! ;)

Until next time......

PS: The blog title is a title of a song by Mike Doughty. It's pretty good. You should look it up. You're welcome.