Fire Alarm & Airport Evacuation by -20°C (-4°F) at Oslo International Airport
First off, I love Oslo's Gardermoen Airport: high-tech, ecological, lots of natural wood and stone, indoor greenery – not to mention a nice selection of restaurants and bars, a huge duty free shopping area and very nice lounges – make it a wonderful place to land or take off from.
Just flying in over the Oslo Fjord, then the city, then across the hills to Gardermon is beautiful day or night
(I did night this time ... well, 5 pm, but it was winter so pitch black already).
This time, Oslo greeted me with -20°C (that's 4 below zero if you prefer Fahrenheit) – arctic conditions!
It was kinda cool watching the planes roll across the white snowy apron (where other airports collapse under one snowflake, right Heathrow?).
But not Oslo: they laugh at the -20° and keep going on their friendly smiling way.
Well, we landed, I disembarked, strolled around on my way to baggage claim, then planned to grab the Flytoget (the airport express train from Oslo Airport to Oslo's main station downtown, Oslo Sentralstasjon) which departs directly under the airport. So I grabbed my bags, walked through the "nothing to declare" sign out and turned right towards the Flytoget escalators ...
Then all hell broke loose.
Alarms. Sounded like red alert on the Enterprise. Everywhere.
Loudspeakers blaring lots of Norwegian, then finally English: "Attention: A Fire Alarm has been activated. Evacuate the building immediately and move to the designated area".
Brilliant. By -20°C and we are to go outdoors and wait?
Many options here. Time to think fast.
Escalators and stairs down to platforms 2 and 3 (Flytoget) arte inside the building and will not work: wrong direction ... staff had appeared out of nowhere and were herding the people out the doors ...
Outside is cold: I'm supposed to do that, but don't want to.
The Radisson Blu Hotel is across the street and has a heated lobby bar with a Starbuck's dispensary. We have a winner!
I walked across the street (why was no one else thinking of this?) and entered the lobby to check if they, too, were evacuating.
Nope. Warm lights, piano music....
So I grabbed a coffee and started to think of what to do next...
And then I even remembered that the Radisson also has a back entrance that accesses the Flytoget from the opposite end of the platforms – Ends that were open still, and trains were moving!
Since trains run every 10 minutes or so, I relaxed by an open first (oh, the irony!!), drank my coffee, and then left out the back door to grab a train into town.
More on the Flytoget trains later ...
Comentários