Dear Editor,
Last Wednesday (Jan. 6) we went to Rochelle to run errands and eat dinner. When we returned, our smoke/carbon monoxide alarms were going so loud that it was frightening. Jim put new batteries in and that was not the problem. The alarms kept telling us to leave the house. Never having had a problem with them, we did not leave immediately.
We finally called our daughter, Deb Howard, and she contacted the fire department. They told her to get us out of the house immediately. She did and followed the fire trucks out. They came immediately and were so nice and did such a good job of cleaning the carbon monoxide out and then turning different things back on until they found out which one it was. It was a gas stove that we had in the basement. We had used it for years without any problems. Our power was off and we had had it on to cook breakfast. We will have to dispose of it correctly.

Also, we had our generator on and the exhaust was close to our furnace fresh air intake. It was a still night with no breeze. It was drawing some carbon monoxide in with the fresh air intake.
I wish we had gotten the names of the wonderful firemen and firewoman who came out. They were awesome. They also told us to get new alarms — ours were 20 years old. These very well saved our lives by warning us of the carbon monoxide. If we had went to sleep that night, we probably never would have awakened. So, please, be sure you have the alarms and that they are working. Put in new batteries when the time changes.
I had a good friend who had carbon monoxide in her home before they had alarms. Her daughters had a friend over. My friend and her daughters lived, but their friend didn’t.
Jim and Audrey Summers
Rochelle