Did you enjoy fire drills at school?

I enjoyed getting out of class, but hated the initial part.

No. I get migraines and my school did 2-4/day. By the time a drill day was over, I usually had a migraine that lasted for a week.

When I didn’t know about them, yes because I liked all the different pitches they had.

It was so funny at my middle school, we had 4903-9217’s and they all had different pitches! It would have been cool if something like this could be done with all of them. :

Elementary yes, got to hear a variety from Simplex 4030-2s (1st-2nd), FCI 450+VALS (2nd-4th), and 892-2Bs (4th-5th). Middle no, do to the Type 2s, than MT4 plus getting ruthlessly picked on during and after drills (I loath the entire town of Portland CT now). High yes, got to hear 4040s do coded 4s and the picking on ended (9th- a month of 10th), than my fear finally breaking (rest of 10th-12th).

Elementary school and junior high…no way. The fire alarm had a loud buzzer likely an Edwards adapthorn and to make worse it was right in our classroom back in kindergarten in 1978/79. The first time our teacher mentioned we had 20 seconds until the fire alarm was about to go off I freaked out. High school…yes as it was a loud bell however bells never bothered and still don’t bother me to this day.

Now if only it was like that musical one that would be great even despite the buzzing. That almost had be on the floor busting a gut. :lol: :lol: :lol: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

How would a teacher know if a fire alarm was going to go off in exactly 20 seconds?

The principal or custodian probably told her with it being a planned fire drill although the rest during my school years we were never told in advance. She just told us it was going to be going off and in all honestly I thought she was kidding…boy was I wrong. I was only 5 years at time. The following year our other teacher told us we were going to have a practice fire drill while were in the library. Again I didn’t think we were supposed to know in in advance about them. You can probably guess the library was the last place I wanted to be that day.

Yeah my elementary school had -9219s. Now they have boring Advances.

Depends whether I’m causing unplanned ones by our experiments in the science lab or not… [emoji23]

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Well, we had our first one (of the final four) today at about 8:20. I still don’t understand why a siren sounds over the PA system when the fire alarm goes off. Anyone know why that happens, or why the “bell” system takes precedence over the siren? My guess it’s a (cheap) way to meet the 75dB requirement without having to have the TrueAlerts on full blast.

Also, off topic, but yesterday I found out that the school has a stock of FCI MS-2s (don’t know why, as the panel is a Simplex 4100u), as one replaced a T-Bar in the pool area. My guess is that it’s replacing a T-Bar that was destroyed during the pool maintenance over Christmas break, as they kept the (malformed) Simplex box. Either that, or the chlorine air degraded box and pull casing, causing an alarm.

I have no idea why a siren would sound over the PA system when the fire alarm goes off. My high school had a siren that would sound over the PA system during tornado drills, but it never sounded when the fire alarm went off.

Never liked them. Always had anxiety attacks from it being unexpected. Especially in elementary school, where I had to wear ear plugs even for the recess bells (I had my watch synced to the bell system lol). High school was a lot better because most drills were listed on a weekly calendar my school posted online, plus in grade 12 I did student council, so I was close to the admin. staff.

Sorry to bump this topic.

In all due respect to this:
[]Pre-K - Indian River Elementary (Yes - got to hear a mix of System Sensor MASSLOs and 2901-9838s+2903s)
[
]Pre-K, Kindergarten, First Grade - Edgewater Public Elementary (No - Due to the 2901-9833s+2903s and Wheelock MT-WMs the school had which were very loud)
[]2nd-5th - Spruce Creek Elementary (No - had to put up with Wheelock MT-WMs again in 2nd grade, as well as a mix of Simplex and Federal Signal Mechanical Horns (i.e. the 4051+Unknown Light Plate, 450D+VALS) and Wheelock and Gentex electronic horn/strobes (not just the MTs, but the AS, GOS, and Commander 2)
[
]6th-8th - Creekside Middle (No - due to Commander 2s and GMSs)
[*]9th-12th - Spruce Creek High (No - due to the loudness of the Commander 2s and 3s, plus the fact I tried correcting student behavior during these drills and the fact that I almost got myself into trouble for doing that)

If we are gonna say which horns we enjoyed the most in each of the schools that we went to, mine would be like this:

Elementary: Enjoyed the Gentex SHG even if I only got to hear it one. Didn’t enjoy the Simplex 4903-9219s because at the end of my time there, I had heard them for 7 straight years.

Middle: Enjoyed the Simplex 4051s on 4050-80 light plates because that was the only alarm in the school. I didn’t enjoy that one time I was in the science wing when the alarms went off and they were DEAFENING.

High: Enjoyed the Simplex 4903-9219s whenever I heard them go off since by that point, I haven’t heard them in 2 years. Didn’t enjoy the Wheelock AS because when you evacuated to the back of the school you would always hear it and I got bored after a while.

Elementary School: DESPISED the TrueAlerts. One, sometimes two horn/strobes per classroom was absolute hell.

Middle School: Still TrueAlerts (and the same school), but at least I was more used to them. Somewhat better, but not great.

High School: Basically the opposite of my elementary school. Mostly NS’s and Exceders (not too loud in the first place), plus the fact that most classrooms don’t have a notification appliance make fire drills a lot more pleasant to the ears. Matter of fact, this year I only have two classes out of eight with horn/strobes in them.

No I don’t because we have edwards integrities on continuous. We only have to do 3 fire drills per semester (2 semesters) so we only have to do 6 in an entire school year

Lucky you only have to 6 per year. Here in FL the schools do one per month (total of 10 per year are required in K-12 schools), plus two drills during the first 10 days of classes. Tornado drills are required too, twice per academic year.

Pre-school (only recall Kindergarten): I didn’t even know where the tone was coming from, I often ended up in tears, covering my ears up, then I don’t really recall the rest, but you get the idea.

Elementary: I HATED them! The ear-piercing yet attention getting AFNOR tone of the sounders, was made even more amplified by the insane echoes.

Junior High/Middle School: It was rather so-so. Again the sounders’ sound was exacerbated by the main building’s acoustics (1980’s style building) and guess what? The class change signal (formerly a steady pulse) always made me jump (as it was sounded few minutes after the fire drill).

High school: Well, talk about fire drills, we don’t have a FA system given how small the building (or should I say, multiple small buildings scattered on a large terrain) is/are, but we do have smoke alarms in the classrooms (but I never recall them being tested).

Mostly, I hate fire drills… but sometimes I was rather, felling a mix of fear [of the noise] and fascination [for the system]. You can say I liked and disliked them at the same time.