The past few weeks it has been extremely cold in my area, and on several occasions the wind was so strong that we were warned that frostbite could occur in 5-10 minutes outside. Now usually during a fire evacuation (even just a drill, much less a true false alarm) at my high school, we end up standing outside for at least 20-30 minutes while they sweep the building and get everything figured out. Since we are also not allowed to bring personal belongings with us (including hats, gloves, coats, etc.) that easily exceeds the time-frame of becoming frostbitten in such weather conditions.
I’m just curious about what would take place if the fire alarm were to sound in these conditions (knock on wood). Obviously the building would have to be evacuated, no doubt, but it seems awfully dangerous to be forced outside for an extended period of time in weather like that.
I seem to remember there was a post on here about that. It was a news video about some type of tarp that the kids would go under and all the body heat would be trapped inside the tarp. I remember it saying it got up to 80 degrees.
I remember having to go out in the cold of winter during alarm activations in HS. It would be very uncomfortable without a coat, but I don’t think it gets as cold here as it does in the Midwest.
i went to school at a complex basically, they’d just march us over to one of the other buildings. although i’m also in an area where school is canceled if it’s too cold to stand at bus stops so I don’t think it’d ever come up.
in areas where extreme cold is the norm (like the artic), normally you’re evacuated to different smoke/fire zones in the building. for example, instead of having a gym integrated into a building, it might be connected by a few hallways with fire doors to isolate it from the rest of the building so everyone would get evac’d there.
your teachers/staff should have a similar plan in place in case the fire alarm goes off when its bitter cold, instead of going outside they might be directed to a certain part of the building opposite of the supposed fire.
When I was in high school in Buffalo, I remember them telling us that the bus garage would send a fleet of buses over if the alarm was activated and the temperature was below 40 or so. Thankfully, that never happened.
The elementary school I attended for grades 5 and 6 consisted of two buildings separated by about fifteen feet. If an evacuation was required during cold weather (it only happened once), we would exit the school’s main building and take refuge in the second building which, at the time, was mostly unoccupied.
If an evacuation was required during such weather conditions at my high school, we would gather at a sports complex located down the street from the school. This complex was our designated assembly/refuge area for emergencies.
I remember my Grade 4 teacher at the time, telling my class a story about how when she was teaching at another school, they had a small fire in the middle of the winter. Her class was doing gymnastics, so they all had no shoes on. What they had to do was get the Grade 8s to pick them up and essentially carry them out the school so that they did not have to touch the ground.