TMI

Sometimes, our access to information can be overwhelming.

I was in a big 2-hour meeting this morning when my phone rang.  It was the city-wide alert system, but I figured it was just reminding me to vote, so I ignored it.

Soon enough, an email from my wife that our childrens' two elementary schools were in lockdown.  (Yes, our children attend different elementary schools.  Long story.)  The missed call got recorded, the voicemail transcribed and emailed to me.  Yep, the district informing us of the lockdown.

So I kept checking the district website during the meeting.  In less than an hour, the nearby high school was also in lockdown and suddenly a ring was being drawn around our neighborhood.  And I saw from Facebook that others had seen at least 9 police cars race down the street when they were dropping off their child.

A while later, an all-clear posted on the district website and a an all-clear call I wasn't able to get in time, but which also got voicemailed, transcribed and emailed to me.  By then, the meeting was over and I was able to go to a local newspaper website (how will we get our local news once the newspapers have all died?) and learn that two burglars had robbed a house in our neighborhood and the car was seen at a second house where the police apprehended one of the burglars and the stolen car and were looking for the other burglar.

So all that for a pair of robberies.  That's great, I mean, that kind of thing just does not happen in our neighborhood, and it's cool that they were that on top of things, but in the end, it was a situation that could have happened and gotten all resolved without me knowing and been blissfully unaware.