Well, IDK where it happened exactly. Some places have you make it yourself, other places have staff do it for you. I didn’t see the panel, so IDK which store it took place in. All I know is that it happened in the food court…
Well, it seems despite single-digit windchills this morning, UAlbany still went through w/ a fire drill for the Lecture Centers. I just missed it. My class got out at 9:40 and the drill took place at 10:00. Had my class been an hour and 20 minutes instead of 55 minutes, I’d have been involved in it. Instead, I was walking out of the library just as the alarm went off (I heard 2 slow whoops and then nothing, so I assume the voice message was playing then).
When I e-mailed the Environmental Health and Safety office (the department that conducts the drills) in the fall semester of my freshman year, they said all the drill times were weather permitting, but I’ve seen them do drills during a thunderstorm, and now during single-digit wind chill weather, so apparently, the weather doesn’t really play that much of a factor…
Neither does it over here. The only time we have DON’T have fire drills is when it rains or snows. Otherwise, we have on a week, even if it is freezing out.
We usually don’t have fire drill when it’s raining, and rarely do they hold them during the winter months.
Your very lucky. I think technical schools are supposed to have a bit more alarms then regular schools.
Yeah because of all the tech departments and the bigger risk of fires i suppose.
Like over here. we have Culinary, Machine Tech, Computer Tech, Auto, Bio Tech, Carpentry, Cosmo, Electrical, Business Tech (my shop), Electronics, Graphics and Health Careers.
It was also interesting, because when I e-mailed them again last semester to report the broken strobe, he said planning for the 2008 drills wasn’t going to begin until March, but I guess they decided to do it earlier…
I wanted to go to our counties tech school because it offered an architecture program but my dad said no… 
Ah well, my school offers some architecture electives.
(10:30) And, I’m at work right now, and we just had another alarm! Well, sort of. I was working away when the alarm went off. I didn’t even notice the first strobe flash (strobes flash once before the audible goes off - at least on the voice evac systems), so it kinda caught me off guard. Well, me and my co-worker start to leave, but before the voice message could begin, the alarm stopped. I was just like “Ok…”. Then the director of the campus center came out of his office and said we didn’t have to leave. The strobes continued to flash for another 30 seconds and then stopped. The director said they’re probably doing some testing, and he went on to say that they’ve been doing this since 8:30 this morning.
(11:20) IT HAPPENED AGAIN! And this time, it went on for much longer, and we had to leave. Once again, I was working away, but this time I saw the strobe flash. Stangely enough, it did three slow whoops before the voice began instead of the regular two. The assistant director of the office asked the building director if it was real, and the director said, “I guess so.” So, we get our things and leave. When we were in the lobby, I could hear the annunciator beeping, but then it stopped, so they must have acknowledged it. This was my first hint that it was another test. We got outside just as the slow whoops began, and a few seconds after the whoops began, they silenced it. We stayed outside for another 30 seconds while the strobes continued to flash and went back in when they stopped. We ran into people leaving and they were asking us what was going on and we told them everything was ok. Another person called our office asking what was going on and again, we told him everything was fine. The director then called what I presume was the Environmental Health and Safety office to find out what was going on, since we have events going on, and again, they told him everything was just testing. Some people didn’t even leave when the alarm went off. It’s more odd than usual because if they do testing, they usually always disable everything before beginning. I hope this doesn’t go on all day…
P.S., I did manage to get a video of the 2nd alarm. I’ll post it when i get home.
That’s pretty awesome, though I’m surprised that no one e-mailed a building supervisor about the testing. I would assume that they would do something like that, and then the supervisor would pass it along to employees.
I’ve seen a few examples of fire alarm testing bulletins on doors of buildings saying something like “This building’s fire alarm system will be tested from (time) to (time), please do not evacuate if you hear the alarms during that time. We apologize for any inconvenience this testing may have on you. If you have any questions call the (safety dept name) at (their number)”
I mean, that’s what I’ve seen. Usually fire testing standards for alerting building occupants are pretty strict in educational facilities and office buildings, at least in our state. As far as public places, ha, I’m sure the building security doesn’t have time to go to each occupant and tell them that there is testing.
Here’s the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRDiu4FEHWo
As for the director of the building knowing, he said there’s been testing going on since 8:30, but i guess he, like the rest of us, didn’t expect the alarms to sound, because like I said, everytime Simplex comes here they always disable the signal circuits and auxiliary relays, so nothing happens. IDK why they didn’t do that this time. Of course, I’m also wondering if it was even Simplex doing the testing…
The Physics building had it’s semester fire drill today. I was taking my test next door in the Campus Center when I hear MTs in continuous. I look out the window and sure enough, the strobe on the outdoor MT (along w/ those on the TrueAlerts inside) was flashing away. They kept the signals active for like 5 minutes and then silenced them. Two things happaned here. First, everyone went back in despite the fact that the strobes were still flashing (we’re supposed to wait until they stop). Second, IDK if it was a system glitch or what, but it seems that one of the outdoor MT’s horn remained active after the system wqs silenced. When they silenced the system, everything stopped for the most part (the TrueAlerts even did that 4th blast commonly found w/ SmartSync systems), but I could still hear an “eeeeeeeeeeee…” sound, and it didn’t stop until the strobes stopped flashing. IDK if it’s programmed like that or not, but I don’t recall that happening the last few times I’ve seen that system activate. And for the record, there’s 4 outdoor MT horn/strobes (all weatherproof) for that building.
Mamie for just that one, they wired the strobe and horn circuit together?
Nah, I dont think so. They probably got the horn and strobe circuits confused and wired some if not all of the MTs on the strobe NAC. Common mistake.
No, it definately was not all the MTs. The 2 MTs closest to me stopped sounding but the strobes continued to flash, so it must have been one of the two down on the other end of the building.
Probably, then. They might have forgotten to remove the jumper wires.
No new alarm events to report, but there is some other news to report.
I was in the science library the other day using the computers. Well, I looked out this window that overlooked the lobby, and I saw something funny w/ one of the MTs. At first I thought it was replaced w/ an RSS. But upon further inspection, it wasn’t an RSS, it was this:
I looked around the lobby and I noticed that 3 of the 4 MTs in that lobby had been replaced w/ new MTs. I wish they did replace all 4 though, because that one MT-LSM looks so stupid by itself. As far as I could tell, the 3 MTs that got replaced were the only ones in the building that had been replaced, but I haven’t done a thorough inspection… I also managed to pass right by these when i first walked in. But to be honest, if I were looking straight ahead (which I was), I’d be staring at the one MT that didn’t get replaced, so that would explain why I missed the 3 that got replaced.
Also, my anxiety is up again, so i once again asked for the fire drill schedule, and thankfully, I won’t be any fire drills this semester. At least w/ the buildings that have ASs in the classrooms, and the rest of my class buildings have already had their drills for the semester, so hopefully they won’t be doing any more, but aside from the LCs and the Srts and Sciences buildings, which have speaker/strobes installed (w/ remote strobes installed in the classrooms in the Arts and Sciences building), the physics building also has remote strobes installed in the classrooms, so I won’t mind if anything happens in any of those locations. And There’s already been drills in the LCs and physics buildings. And, my class is so late in the Arts and Sciences building, I’m not a bit worried about having a drill in there. Besides, as mentioned, they have remote strobes in the classrooms. Hopefully the LCs won’t have another one, but again - speaker/strobes, so no big deal.
The new MTs are looking good. What’s the fire drill situation at UAlbany?
I know at most universities here in California, it’s just one drill at the beginning of the year, and usually no more after that. Now as for “unplanned fire drills”, those run frequent across California universities.
For normal buildings, it’s 3 drills per year - one in the fall semester, one in the spring semester, and one during the first week of the summer semester. For buildings w/ high occupance ratings, it’s 4 drills per year. Requirements are the same as those buildings w/ 3 drills per year and the 4th drill just has to be stuck in somewhere. And there’s no “drill period” like in schools up here - drills at UAlbany are held year-round, but cannot be held during midterms and finals. Also, non-planned activations cannot count as drills, but I’ll tell ya, if that were allowed, the campus center extension would never have to do one - that system goes off all the time.