Fire Alarm False Activation - May 8th, 2014

Copied from the video’s description:

This all happened after school on 5/8/14. I was in a private lesson when it went off (they installed horn-strobes in EVERY practice room - and they’re only 10’x10’) so it freaked me out to the point where I dropped my trumpet! DX It survived, with a little dent to show for it that can probably be hammered out. I gathered my stuff and went back into the band hall, since we still had a jazz rehearsal going on. One of the administrators announced over the PA system that since they didn’t know the cause of the alarm yet, everyone in the school had to be evacuated. I (carefully) put my instrument down and walked outside. In hindsight, I probably should have packed it up and taken it with me since I didn’t know if it was false or not, but whatever. I pulled out my phone, started recording, then proceeded to evacuate, as you can see. We were outside for about ten minutes until the same administrator came on the PA and told us to reenter the building. Continuing our rehearsal, we moved on.

The next day I talked to the administrator and asked him why the alarms went off, and he said that the water pressure somewhere in the building dropped. I said that if it was a waterflow switch, then it should have registered as a supervisory condition, and not a general alarm.

The signals are Siemens-rebranded Wheelock ZNS-MCW-FW horn-strobes, ZRS-MCW-FW remote strobes, and AHWP-24 remote weatherproof horns.

The poster you see at the beginning is censored to protect the identity of my school, and by extension, myself.

EDIT: Corrected “ASWP” to “AHWP”, since they were remote horns.