are unannounced fire drills in dorms a bad idea?

germoon
Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:55:06 +0000

Okay guys, I get the points you are all bringing up, but independent of the fact that they’re a hassle, at my particular school they completely backfired. Kids milled around the hallways and trickled out slowly, not really taking it seriously. No one could hear what the fire marshal was saying, and we immediately went back inside, and most kids said they probably wouldn’t leave if the alarms went off again because it would probably just be an unannounced fire drill. So in terms of live lost in case of a real fire, this would be a disaster. And, even if we have to have the drills to test out equipment, if they were announced beforehand, then kids might stay in their rooms if they choose, or study elsewhere while it was happening, to avoid it. That’s not the main reason to announce them though, it’s that in the case of the alarm going off when there is no announced drill, there would be no doubts that this was an actual emergency, and the students would exit with haste.

By not announcing these drills, they are instilling an atmosphere of doubt and indicating that they would not trust us to adequately complete the drill if we knew it was just a drill beforehand. There was no organization in this case. No one checked to see if there were people still inside. We were not kept out there for very long (in fact, I was one of the last few out, and I was back inside in about thirty seconds). Yes, technically the blame is on the students, as they should always leave when a fire alarm goes off. But realistically, the blame is more on the administration. They should by now understand the mentality of a college student.