Since I can’t edit my own posts on this board, I’m just gonna quote myself here. Anyways, I forgot to mention that it seems like the custodial staff sets the alarm off for the fire dept. actually. All the firefighters were in the main entrance hall with our vice principal who is currently acting principal (our principal is currently out until next month because he had neck surgery or something). The panel is in the mechanical room, so they couldn’t have activated it unless they key activated a pull station in that hallway instead of using manual evac or something.
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Yeah, the fire department usually knows little to nothing on fire alarm systems. I had firefighters actually ruin a system. It was an addressable system, and they couldn’t get the pull station to reset so the firefighters decided to rip it right off the wall, which caused the panel to mess up and it wouldn’t reset anymore, and we had to replace the entire system.
Today my school went on soft lockdown due to an armed robbery at a local campus, yikes. I was taking the SAT in a classroom so I didn’t see any of the blue strobes at our school flashing but they definitely were.
Last Thursday, we had our tornado drill of the year (also coincidentally the only drill each year that isn’t a fire drill). For a change this year, instead of just announcing the drill, a hi-lo tone was played over the intercom (WITHOUT an accompanying announcement). The issue with this, however, was that A) the PA only works in some of the school, as I’ve mentioned before and B) that administration never bothered to tell teachers what the hi-lo tone was to signify nor did they send an e-mail out about the scheduled tornado drill like they usually do. In other words, most classes (mine included) just ignored the sound and went on with their work (because our PA is glitchy and sometimes it’ll just play random tones… ya know). I’m told a few classes evacuated (because NS’s and Exceders on code-3 apparently sound like hi-lo??), thinking that the tone signified a fire drill. Very few if any classes actually did what they were supposed to and took shelter. All in all, this was certainly a meme-worthy drill and hopefully the administration is more organized and prepared for next year’s drill.
Whoa, really? That they can’t tell the difference of the sound type from a Wheelock NS, and Exceder horn signal to a UK-style high-low signal?
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No, that was sort of a sarcastic jab at any teacher who heard the hi-lo sound (with no strobes, I might add) and instantly thought that it signified a fire drill. Really the administration is most at fault for not telling teachers about the tone, but I’d hope that most teachers could distinguish between a shrill high-pitched beep and a hi-lo tone.