Last year, at the beginning at my sophomore year on the first day of school during 6th period band class I was playing music on my xylophone doing warmups and then the fire alarm goes off. I was so confused :?: so the band director told us where we were going to evacuate. Everyone leaves the building and returns back to the building. Why would my school do this? Did your school have a fire drill on the first day of school?(Alarms,Siemens UMMTs)(Date it happened, 8/7/14 so it was sooooo hot outside)
My school would go over evacuation routes the first Friday of the year (we would count it as our “first” fire drill, because we had to to do two drills in the first two weeks of school) then the second Friday we’d have a “real” drill. Some schools decide they want to get it over with, so they just do it on the first day, I guess.
Never happened to me. It’s honestly a bit surprising that a school would do that, given how hectic the first day of the year already is.
My school wanted them over with. They got them done until the first two weeks. The elementary school in my district was still doing them into this month. The only way I know is because everyone was standing outside when the school bus passed the school (HS/MS ends at 2:17, and elementary at 2:55).
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Never happened. I remember 2 times in elementary school where my principals demonstrated the fire alarm systems to us. One time was when we had the Edwards 6500 with the single stroke bells, and then in Grade 6 when they upgraded the system to the Mircom horn/strobes.
We tend to have drills one per quarter. Pretty standard system for us.
this is kinda the same track it wasnt the first day of school but our school has all spectra alert ceiling mount advanced and these things are looud. and one day some crazy teacher left a bagel in the toaster for about 20 minutes and it started smoking then 3 minuts later the firelalarm went off. The first firedrill at this school i ever had i thought that someone broke into the building because it was so loud. then i plugged my ears which i never had to do at my orevious school. I am also wondering are bells worse that those spectra alert because spectra alerts are pretty loud.
My schools have always waited until the third or fourth week of school to do their first fire drills. The one exception was in grade 6, when we had one during gym class on the third day back.
Kind of off-topic, but IMO, all electronic horns are louder than bells. However, bells do seem more effective, since the general public is more likely to identify them as fire alarms.
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I would have to disagree.
The reason mechanical and electronic horns were created was to prevent confusion. Some times bells can mean a lot more things that a fire. The distinct sound of a Simplex TrueAlert in Temporal is easily recognized as meaning there is a fire.
Yup, just imagine this:
Fire Alarm: BRDRBDRBRDR…
A: C, answer your phone!
B: I thought that was the doorbell.
Fire Alarm: …BRDRBDRBRDR…
C: Oh, I burnt my popcorn.
Microwave: Beep
A: Okay, then shut that f***ing thing up!
B: It’s the fire alarm, we should get out.
A, B, and C: evacuate
Now for our Simpex friend:
Fire Alarm: Mehr Mehr Mehr… (what’s the onomatopoeia for a TrueAlert?)
A: C, did you burn your popcorn?
B: Let’s get out either way.
C: opens microwave, coughs Sorry! blushes
A, B, and C: evacuate
Horns save lives! More importantly, smoke detectors should never be placed above microwaves!
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Never had it happen. The first fire drill usually happened in October but in elementary and junior high school, we had fire drills on the last day of school (not pulled) and in junior high school we had dismissal fire drills.
How did that work logistically? Did you get your coats, books, etc. before they sounded the alarm?
We had a few fire drills at dismissal during my senior year of high school - one of which was on the very last day of school. We weren’t told about it in advance, nor do I remember going back in to get my things afterwards, but my memories are foggy. I think I might have had everything I needed at that time (there was no need for coats since it was warm out).
Never had a fire drill on the first day of school, but I’ve heard of it happening elsewhere. I remember a local newspaper article detailing the first day at a local elementary school, and it mentioned that there was a fire drill.
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We were told in advanced and we had our stuff with us. We didn’t have coat rooms or stuff to put our things in.
Never. In elementary school, first one was usually on the third day. High school and middle school usually waited a week or two, then did 2-4 in a day to get the 8 required fall drills out of the way over the span of 2-3 “drill days”. We were usually done with drills for the fall by the end of the 4th-5th week in both cases. A similar thing happened in the spring, with the 4 spring drills happening over 1-2 days. Middle school had 2901-9838s on march time in the part of the building I was in, so it wasn’t too bad, but the high school had Genesis and Integrity horn/strobes (with GX-90s in continuous thrown in a few rooms for good measure) and those got brutal after 2-3 times a day.
In elementary school in New York, we had one “evacuation drill” tied into a lockdown drill per year where the alarm did not go off, but we followed fire drill procedures.
When I lived in Ohio for a couple years of elementary school, the first one was also on the third day, but near the end of the year, 1-2 fire drills were tacked onto the end of tornado drills.
Up until this year, we would always have our first drill on the third day of school (with the exception of 6th grade, when it was pushed back a day due to bad weather), but this year, we had a new principal, and she decided to wait until the following Thursday to conduct the first drill. After that, we usually have one in late September, one in early November, and one in April/May. Last year, we only conducted the first two required fire drills (though strangely enough we conducted all of our required lockdowns), and after that we had NONE. That may have been in part due to the heavy construction going on for most of last year.