Not evacuating because it’s raining outside??? That seems like a major safety issue. We do have problems in the winter in my area, though, as the wind chill commonly gets down to around -40°F for around a week every winter. In that case, it’s actually more dangerous to go outside than to stay in the building unless there is 100% an urgent emergency. In those situations when a fire alarm goes off it’s standard practice to just be alert for any signs of danger and take any necessary actions.
We had ANOTHER false fire alarm today at school (10/3/25). The bell had just rung to end second period (band class for me) and I was going to go to the bathroom down the hall before walking back to my next class which was cooking class (located directly adjacent to the music area). When I was almost to the bathroom, I thought I heard a split second 900hz tone, and a second later I heard the 900hz temporal 3 tone and message and the strobes started flashing. I, along with many others, decided to just continue walking down the hallway to get to the exit door. I was actually extremely impressed with the students’ reactions to the unexpected alarm during the passing period, which has never happened before. Despite the many false alarms we’ve had between this year and last year, everyone took it seriously and evacuated quickly. Funnily enough, the Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent were at our school for whatever reason, and the Superintendent was actually holding the door for us on the way out.
Here’s a diagram I made with my school’s map to help illustrate exactly what happened:
Red Circle: The one on the left indicates the FACP location and the one on the right indicates the annunciator location
Green Circle: the bathroom I was intending to go to
Blue Line: Indicates my path after the bell rang and before the alarm went off
Purple Line: indicates my path after the alarm went off
Yellow Line: indicates why my path would have been after the alarm went off if I had gone straight to my cooking class
The cause of the alarm was unknown, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the same person who pulled the alarm on Tuesday did it again today, especially since it was during passing period. They were also blowing out the lawn sprinklers for the winter, and the fire alarm at my Middle School got set off from something they did during that process almost exactly two years ago, so it’s also possible that something with that messed with the FA system.
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Ahh, band student I see. Hi!! I would share a map of my school, but I need to blur the schools name out.
We had our first actual drill of the year on 10/3/25 (excluding the countless false alarms, which I’ll compile into a video in a few eons from now). Took place during my Photo & Video class in 3rd period, and we all evacuated to the football & track field. Not sure about the classes across campus though (we were the new extension classes with all the shiny new Honeywell + System Sensor stuff). We pretty much just headed to lunch and continued on with our day.
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Ooh, a honeywell system? Thats nice.
Well, I think they went on the intercom. I feel like we were just bout to go out in the hall when they came on. I know they would never say that.
looks at written post… pauses… takes glasses off my face.. Jeez! We’re known for it being too HOT!! I’m serious, the heat index in Memphis is somethin’ else.
what instrument? I’m in percussion. did French Horn in 6th. Picking up Trumpet on my own.
Cool. I am okay with Honeywells products. “ESPECIALLY the older thermostats.”
Yeah, I live in ND, so I always find it amusing just how shocked people are when they find out how cold it gets during the winter in the North. We usually get our first snowfall around the time of Halloween. They’re saying we are probably going to have an especially brutal winter this year with potentially multiple feet of snow. We do have snow days when it snows a lot and they haven’t plowed the roads yet, but you’d be surprised the kind of weather they make people drive in. I know in elementary school they made us go outside for recess until the wind chill got down to -10°F.
This is my fifth year playing Trumpet. I may or may not ever switch to another brass instrument, but I don’t plan on ever playing a woodwind instrument, as I have tried and failed at that.
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I just did french horn for one year so i could just do percussion.
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I thought Wisconsin was the place lol.
We cant go outside if the heat index is 100
I guess that makes sense. You don’t want heat stroke. We don’t have to worry about that in the school year, as it only gets that hot for a couple of weeks near the end of July.
It’s pretty much all of the northern Midwest.
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Its October and its still 80 degrees over here lol.
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Today we had a fire drill during 1st period (My dual enrollment English class.) I had a hunch it was going to happen (Just like with the first drill of the year.) I did not hear the evacuation announcement over the intercom, but I didn’t see any other buildings as evacuate besides my own, so I believe they are doing that one building evacuation thing again.
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Were on fall break. 
Today my school had our first false alarm of the year. We’ve already had a drill, and over the summer they changed the message on the system back to evacuating the whole school after last year when there was a “shelter in place” message that played when the alarm was activated due to numerous threats involving someone pulling the fire alarm and threatening to hurt people when we evacuated. The message is back to the one we had before saying “May I have your attention. A fire emergency has been reported. Please exit the building immediately and safely using the directions posted for your area or the nearest exit. Do not use the elevators.” The message is voiced by our building emergency rapid response director. In 2nd period, the alarm sounded and we began an evacuation. The fire department responded relatively quickly, however there were some issues. The panel has been in trouble for around a week now saying “T001 COMMON TRBL 1ST RM 144 BPS 1-7 VISUAL TRIGGER”. Apparently most of the strobes in a part of the first floor did not activate at all, which is extremely concerning for a school. I didn’t see any broken strobes since the stairwell I evacuated by had a direct exit, so I didn’t walk through the first floor. It turned out to be a false alarm, however it took around 20 minutes before the alarm was silenced and we were cleared for re-entry. I hope they fix the strobe issue quickly since it’s definitely a problem.
Here’s a clip of the audio from the fire drill we had earlier this year. You can hear the new voice message and the weird Genesis horn tone: Fire Drill Audio - Google Drive
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I was going to pick up breakfast and coffee for me and my parents at the local Dunkin’, only to be greeted by the sound of SpectrAlert Advances ringing as I pull into the parking lot, and I think “Oh, they’d better not have canceled my order!” Fortunately they were still working, and the reason for the fire alarm activation was because they burned something in their oven and they were waiting for the fire department to arrive and reset the detector and system. Sure enough after I pulled out, I passed a fire truck heading for that particular Dunkies’ location. (They have an ESL system of some kind with SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes.)
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Today we had a lockdown drill during 3rd period (Dual enrollment college algebra.) Funny thing is, I wasn’t in my college algebra classroom at the time. I was in my guidance counselor’s office discussing a gap in my schedule. The centegix crisis alert system was not activated.
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Today at school, during fifth period (my Algebra 2 class), the principal made an announcement over the intercom saying that they would be working on the fire alarm system and to disregard any alarms until further notice. For quite a while, nothing happened. Almost as soon as the bell rang to end 6th period (my A.P. Bio. Class), the alarm went off. A few seconds later, one of the secretaries reminded everyone over the intercom not to evacuate. The alarm shut off a couple of minutes later. Towards the middle of my tutorial period (basically a study hall between 6th and 7th periods), the alarm went off again. This time, there was no announcement, and the alarm was shut off around 8 minutes later.
I didn’t actually expect the alarm to go off, because ironically, with as many false alarms as we have had over the past two years, it has never gone off when they announced that they were doing work that could set it off. It was kind of annoying listening to the alarm repeat over and over again for several minutes. Some people were complaining of getting headaches from the bright flashing lights. I have no idea what exactly they were working on, but let’s hope it’s something to help reduce the amount of false alarms.
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I guess that does mean it’s effective at making people want to evacuate in a real emergency.
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I just found out that was a false alarm, there was a cooking fire. luckily nobody got harmed.
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