"The store, the store, the store is on fire..."

[sarasquirrel]

last September our power went out, like 3pm. and then it smelled like something was burning. we(I) pulled the fire alarm and had to explain to customers, esp at pharmacy, they had to get out. no power= registers not working.

power was out for 3 hours. we stayed outside due to the nasty smell inside (nothing burned, it was a power surge) and we had to tell each customer that pulled up that we were closed due to an outage.

surprisingly most took it fine and went to the nearby 24 hr store. but i remember one woman, asked if we were open. we say no, she asks again, we say no were closed, so she pulls into a space anyway and we tell her AGAIN we are closed, i think she finally understood

[fireheart]

I hope the store is OK.

Who the heck sets clothes on fire? A pyromaniac with a death wish?

[Dave1982]

Seriously, if there was ever a fire at my store, and people refused to leave until they were checked out, I'd tell them they were free to stay and burn to death. But I'll be damned if you're gonna walk out of here without paying for that stuff. Leave it.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

The same thing happened in my store years ago, before I started there.

Also years ago (I remember the exact date--July 4, 1987) there was a fire in the strip mall attached to the store, a pretty bad one that destroyed about half the mall. There was an electrical problem in the ceiling, and no fire breaks in the ceiling, so it spread pretty quickly.

Then, as now with your store, people were reluctant to leave when ordered to evacuate. My mom was working there when it happened and dealt with some of those people. She wasn't even allowed to grab her purse before leaving.

As for the store itself, it wasn't damaged. There was a fire door between the mall and the store. Just a lot of stuff ruined by a smoke smell.

Hope nobody was hurt.

[reirei]

Some one set some racks of clothes on FIRE in my store today. I shit you not. SET THEM ON FIRE.

There was smoke and filling the place and people would NOT LEAVE!!! There were actually people who refused to leave until they were checked out.

Holy cow.

Meanwhile I am in the back of the store making my escape with some friends through the fire exits. Apparenly they are supposed to have a five second delay bofore they open to slow down shoplifters.

Me: *Pushes on handle and a loud alarm goes off*
Manager behind me: It will open in five seconds so stand by it and hold it open.
five seconds later.... Door does not open
twenty seconds later... Door still has not opened. We begin to seriously consider going out through the bay doors when it finally opens.
Me: Sir, you gotta get those people to recalobrate these things.

Out side we meet up with co-workers as customers are getting out like bats out of hell as the fire trucks arrive.

My friends and I begin to sing as we go to the car:

"The store, the store, the store is on fire!
We don't need no water let the mother f_cker burn,
Burn mother f_cker burn.."

There were six fire trucks and three police cars parked in front of the store. Wouldn't you notice that going in? Would you then park your car and try to go into the store in question?

DOZENS of people did just that. One person walked right past the fire truck parked infront of one of the doors, over the fire hoses and tried to get inside only to be stopped, much to her displeasure, by a fireman.

People were actually ARGUING with the cops and firemen at the doors. And others were lining up at the side doors on the entrance ways to get it. One after another trying to get into a door that was LOCKED!!

There was this one lady who stood at the cross walk to one of the entrances and stared at the cop car and police tape for about five minutes before walking across and trying to go inside.

So they finally clean it all up and air the place out, took three hours.

We open the store back up and the pharmacy is opened back up for it's final two hours, even though a lot of the floor associates are wearing dust masks because of the lingering smell.

We in the pharmacy then had to deal with two hours of people calling to yell at us for the store and pharmacy being closed for three hours.

Typical call:

Reirei: Thank you for calling blank Pharmacy this is Reirei how may I help you?
CS: When do you close?
Reirei: We close at nine sir.
CS: Then why the hell were you closed earlier??? I wanted to bring my prescription in!
Reirei: I am very sorry sir, but the store had a fire so we all had to evacuate and close the store.
CS: If the store had a fire, why did you close the pharmacy??
Reirei:

The best part of all this is the fact that the fire investigators had taped and blocked off the area of the store the fire happened in. But people would not keep out!!! I guess they really needed a t-shirt badly.

I will tell more fire stories from my fellow associates in the next coming days.