Meet the Little Rock Fire Department

All day Friday there were predictions of severe thunderstorms for that afternoon. I tried to make as many calls as I could that morning to prevent being stuck out in the rain when the storm came rolling in and at 3:00 pm it hit hard and fast.

The sky turned completely grey and almost black. The winds immediately started blowing tree limbs and debris throughout the roads. The rain came down sideways but at first there wasn't much of it which is never a good sign. I headed straight for home as quickly as possible. It scares me to be in a car when the weather is that bad and they were starting to predict tornado warnings so I really wanted to be home.

Once home I fixed myself a little snack, curled up in bed, and was watching some t.v. when all of the sudden I hear this extremely loud noise. I knew instantly that the house had been struck by lightening! I screamed like a little girl, the dogs went crazy, the alarm started going off and the power went off but immediately come right back on. I tried to calm the dogs while running to turn off the alarm. Once everything settled, I got back in bed and decided to take a nap.

After about 10 minutes the phone rang and it was ADT. I assumed she was calling because the alarm went off and I told her what happened and that I thought I had turned the alarm off (not really every thinking WHY the alarm went off in the first place). She told me that the alarm was detecting smoke and that the fire department was on their way. I immediately grabbed Bella and we checked the entire downstairs of the house for smoke and found nothing. There was no way I was going to go outside in the rain to check for fire so I waited for the firemen to do that.

They parked the big red firetruck in front of our home sirens going and all. I met about 5 of them at the front door and explained the situation. I told them we had been hit by lightening, the alarm was detecting smoke and that I had searched the house but didn't find anything. I also mentioned that we had an attic that I hadn't checked. They all came in and began the search. They even got the ladder from the truck and walked on the roof and checked surrounding trees for any signs of fire. After about 30 minutes we concluded there was no fire and the lightening must have just created a spark that set off the alarm.

The whole time I suspected there wasn't a fire and felt bad that they were "wasting" their time here knowing they were probably needed elsewhere but at the same time I wanted them to make sure we were safe. Thankfully we had no fire or damage and amazingly had power. They did a thorough job and were really nice and I forgive them for getting water all over my floors!