Tomorrow is the end of Daylight Saving Time, a phenomenon some people disagree with but others love, thus leading to bi-annual Twitter arguments. And while modern technology has made it such that we don't need to turn back every damn clock in the house tonight, you should change the batteries in your smoke detector. Don't have a smoke detector? GET ONE. RIGHT NOW. GET IT.
The FDNY recommends you change the batteries in your smoke detectors when you change the clocks, to ensure they get checked at least twice a year. "Two-thirds of all fatal fires in New York City occur in homes that do not have a working smoke alarm present,” Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a statement. “Smoke alarms are life saving devices—and having a working smoke alarm dramatically increases your chance of survival from a fire."
And though it seems like a hassle, it's better to deal with it now than wait until the telltale beeping of a dying battery, which drives you so goddamn nuts you end up pulling the smoke detector out of the ceiling and sending it down the garbage shoot just for a moment of peace.
Anyway, fires are real and very scary. A working smoke detector alerts you to a fire and presumably gets you out before things get serious—my apartment building, which had NO working smoke detectors, caught fire in the middle of the night last week, and we were only lucky enough to get out thanks to a neighbor banging on our door. It is likely unpleasant to wake up to a firefighter carrying you out of your burning apartment—it is even more unpleasant to not wake up at all. The FDNY will be distributing 30,000 smoke detector and carbon monoxide batteries, as well as electric candles and fire safety literature, in locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan today, so check them out and check your smoke detectors.
