Fire Drills, Severe Weather Drills, Lockdowns, Evacuation Drills for the 2023-2024 School Year

Fire Alarm General Discussion
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103

They definitely act weird. Some teachers lock the classroom doors, others grab their sunglasses and emergency folder beforehand. We also have teachers who will flat out say “We are having a fire drill” at X time. Other teachers remain calm, and do not make it apparent a fire drill is about to occur.

I usually find out, since teachers will leave a vague reminder somewhere, for example, if a teacher accidently flashes their outlook calendar on the board, I can often see when the drill is scheduled.

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104

In regards to the school correcting this issue, a Fire Drill is scheduled for tomorrow. I hope to see this corrected. I am also pretty sure School Safety (District Police) will be on campus to facilitate the drill, as well as run a Hard Lockdown Drill. When they are present, it usually makes kids take them more seriously (students often behave better when they see a Patrol Car in the parking lot.)

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At my school they used to announce every single fire drill. Now we got a new principal who likes to do it differently. If there is a fire drill, the teachers may or may not know about it. If they do know about it, they only know that it will happen that day. This means that the teachers will even still send students out of the room to do things like going to the bathroom. I like this because it makes the drills more realistic.

106

Fire drill Rescheduled, now tomorrow at an unknown time.

107

We were supposed to have our drill tomorrow, since it was the last day before break, but we had an activation that happened last week due to an air freshener tripping a smoke in a small bathroom.

108

I just had a fire drill today. We were coming back from my travel school to go back to my base school and the people in the office told us that we were going to have a fire drill. Sure enough, I get to academic enrichment and the fire alarm goes off. Oddly enough, the alarms were on continuous despite the school being built in 1994 and the fact that the other schools in the county have alarms that use code 3 (of course, there could have been a change in the official code.). The fire drill was done pretty quickly as the alarms shut off before everyone made it outside. After about a minute, everyone went back in.

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My elementary school was opened around 1995 and had a continuous system. They also upgraded to a new addressable system but left the existing notification appliances about 10 years ago. They left them on continuous. My middle school was built around 2008. It still has its original system. The inside has voice evac that does the Simplex 4100U whoop. The outside has horn strobes which are on continuous.

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110

My school has an old EST3 system installed between 2000-2004 w/ Genesis G1R-HOV75 horn/strobes in all classrooms and G1R-V15 remote strobes in restrooms, and integrities outdoors. We have monthly unannounced fire drills. Let me preface this by saying that there was a REAL fire at this school last year which caused large amounts of damage to a few classes, but luckily the sprinkler system functioned properly.

Our October fire drill was a mess. The alarm went off a few minutes into 3rd period. Before we got to the exit, a huge traffic jam had started in the hallway. There were probably at least 300 people (this is a huge public school of a couple thousand people with multiple buildings) going to this one double-door exit. This exit covers one corner of the building, is the only exit within 75-100 feet, and any alternative exits would be full. I happened to be right up against the wall, meaning I was stuck with an EST genesis blaring into my ear (2 or 3 feet away) for over a minute while waiting to get out. This is a problem because if there were a real fire, people would probably panic and having hundreds of people filing into a single exit is not safe.

November. Nobody had any clue it was going to happen (which is probably a good thing for surprise fire drills). A clear strobe (not a fire alarm) began flashing. This was a language class and we share the ASL/Deaf Ed room, the only room which has this strobe as far as I am aware. I later learned it was part of the Alertus system. The Alertus drill message, saying “Your campus or building is conducting a drill”, but not which type, was sent to the desktops and our phones. There was no PA announcement or alarm activation. So we asked around, trying to find out what was going on. We heard some talk about a fire drill, but ‘obviously, the alarms aren’t going off, so it can’t be a fire drill!’ (my very flawed thought process). The all clear message went out, and I assumed it was all just a mistake. Our VP comes over the PA a few minutes later, and states that “we just had our fire drill”, but that the alarms only activated in one building! Keep in mind, there are about seven buildings on the system. The panel networking failed.
AFAIK, the issue has been fixed. Our December fire drill went well, although many of us brought our stuff out (which you aren’t supposed to do) because it was at the end of a class period.

As for other drills and events, we have a Rauland Telecenter U, which plays a tone and prerecorded announcements. It does get your attention, but in some areas is too quiet, like the band hall. For example, we had a lockdown drill during lunch in November, but many people didn’t hear the “drill” part of the announcement, so there was some panic.

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111

We are having out third drill tomorrow. the panel is an EST 3 with voice evac capability, and has the slow whoop tone along with the standard EST3 voice evac. the speakers are all ceiling mount genesis speaker strobes in white that read “ALERT” and have a clear strobe. they also use the speakers for when the BluePoint system activates. the pulls are SIGA-278 pulls under STOPPER II covers without a horn. the smokes are SIGA-IHPS detectors, and we have a very large annunciator that lists all of the grouping zones, and has a microphone to the speaker/strobes.

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112

I’m due a fire drill at my college in the next week or so

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Apparently I forgot to make a post about the December drill at my school, so alas, here it is.

As many of you know, my school has had some rocky drills the last 2 months, with some major issues arising.

The drill took place at 12:45 PM, on Wednesday, December 20th. The drill was unannounced, so only staff knew about it.

At 12:47, the Wheelock NS’es inside of the building activated. In response to this, I promptly stood up, and made my way to the exit door. Upon exiting the classroom, I entered the hallway, where additional classes were flooding in. Surprisingly, the hallways remained relatively quiet, besides a random 7th grade screaming for about 2 seconds. Everyone was in a single file line, and classes remained in their areas, rather than crossing into other lines, and cutting off people.

Upon arriving to the field, I lined up in the appropriate location for the room I was in, school administrators and District Police cleared the school, while the principal and a District Police officer checked each classes card (Green, Yellow, Red).

The building was deemed clear at 12:51, and the FA system was promptly silenced and reset. All classes returned to the building, and instruction continued.

Additional, the school held a “Secure Drill”, which is the equivalent to a soft lockdown. Instruction continued as normal, just with District Police on site, and all exterior gates, and doors leading into the main building locked, with no entry or exit. The drill lasted for about 5 minutes, and an all clear was issued via email.

I am very happy to see all of the issues corrected from previous months, and hope to see drills run as smoothly as this one did in the future.

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114

Does Any Ones School use Standard Response Protocol

Or Srp For Short

Here is a File For There K12 Poster

SRP-K12-2021-Poster_EN.pdf (660.2 KB)

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Hey Everyone I had a fire drill today

Heres what happened

At 2:30 Pm

The Fire Alarm Went Off And i was in math class
when we went outside some one ran and screamed and my math teacher yelled at the person who screamed and ran

116

At my school our drill schedule for the year goes as this:
8/29/23: fire drill @ 10:25
9/1/23: tornado drill @ 10:25
9/5/23: tornado drill @ 3:20
9/7/13: fire drill @ 3:20
9/12/23: serious threat ‘EVACUATE walk-through’ @ 9:01
9/13/23: serious threat ‘EVACUATE active-drill’
9/13/13: fire alarm @ 8:44 (faulty smoke detector)
9/14/23: fire alarm @ 10:37 (illegal drug use)
9/19/23: serious threat ‘BARRICADE and prepare to fight walk-through’ @ 9:01
9/20/23: serious threat ‘BARRICADE and prepare to fight’ active drill
10/3/24: fire alarm @ 10:55 (axe bomb prank)
10/25/23: fire alarm @ 10:40 (illegal drug use)
1/24/24: serious threat ‘RUN HIDE FIGHT’ full active drill with scenario, relocation, and reunification @ 9:01
1/25/24: LOCKDOWN drill (in case of external threat) @ 10:35
3/20/24: tornado drill @ 10:25
3/27/24: tornado drill @ 3:20
4/3/24: serious threat ‘EVACUATE; BARRICADE and prepare to fight’ walk-through drill @ beginning of each class
4/10/24: serious threat ‘RUN HIDE FIGHT’ full active drill with scenario, relocation, and reunification @ 3:00
4/12/24: LOCKDOWN drill (in case of external threat) @ 11:45
4/17/24: fire drill @ 10:25
4/24/14: fire drill @ 3:20

Keep in mind that this is what is minimally required where we live, and I do have videos of most drills for any that are curious. I will continue to update this in the event of unplanned events.

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117

That’s insane compared to my school.

My school district requires 1 fire drill per month in which there is a day that it is above 40°F outside. This usually results in around 3 fire drills per year. This is mainly because, where I live, it is unsafe to go outside for most of the school year without a winter coat.

So far this year, we had only one fire drill on August 29th. We also had a false alarm around the middle of September that counted as a drill.

Last year, we had two fire drills and two false alarms. One of the false alarms happened in when it was below 0°F outside so we had to gather in the gym while the fire department investigated the alarm.

118

I remember when the high schools in my area would only do a real fire drill once or twice a year. But why would schools need 2 tornado drills in a week? Ours would only have like 1 lockdown drill per year and then a earthquake drill whever ShakeOut plans it. And yes most of the time here the weather is also bad.

119

That’s pretty much the same for us, but we don’t get earthquakes here so we don’t have drills for them.

120

The reason they do it this way it to get them over with. They condense the fire and tornado drills to the beginning of first quarter and the beginning of third quarter that way they’re out of the way.

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122

January Fire Drill**

Today my school held our monthly fire drill.

This drill occurred at 2:11 this afternoon, and was unannounced. As I did not have prior knowledge about this drill, my teacher grabbed his keys and sunglasses about a minute before the alarm went off, so I had picked up the fact. When the NS’es activated, I quickly stood up, and walked to the classroom exit. 

As I made my way into the hallway, I noticed on office staff member running through the hallway; as well as other class which began to flood the hallway.

I made my way to the courtyard, where classes began to flood from different hallways, since I was the first one out, and only about 5 people were actually keeping up, our class became a big separated. (The courtyard gets jam packed with 10 classes flooding through a double gate)

I made my way onto the field, where the class located me and continued to follow me. We all lined up, and my teacher took roll. The NAC was active for about 10 minutes, which was rather unusual. We all stood outside and waited during this time. The field remained relatively quiet, with a few people chatting here and there.

The NAC was silenced, and we all returned to the buliding.

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Not sure why half of the text is boxed like that - Please disregard.