Is This a Joke?

I heard a story on the news the other day about the evacuation of the Statue of Liberty because the smoke alarm went off.

Apparently, the entire evacuation took 5 minutes. I guess when you have people thinking this is it, 354 steps don't seem like much. "We're all gonna die!!!!" is a pretty good evacuation technique.

Then there's the little tidbit of info "the firemen got there after a 30 minute boat ride...." So what happens? The alarm goes off at the fire house that there's a fire on Liberty Island, and they hang out on the deck of the ferry as it slowly churns its way through the Hudson? Why not commandeer "The Beast," and get there a lot faster? Do YOU want to be stuck on an island with a 151 foot burning woman?

But the real kicker, the piece de resistance, the rimshot, if you will, is what caused the smoke alarm to go off. It was smoke emanating from the elevator.

Hmmm.

If I was in the Statue of Liberty on a 93 degree day, and was evacuated from the crown, you're darn tootin' it would only take me 5 minutes to get out. I'd be looking for someone in charge so I could yell:

"Waddaya mean ELEVATOR???????"