Lourdes Ginart/Staff Writer
Picture this: In the middle of class the building’s fire alarm goes off.
As a student, your first reaction is probably “Sweet, no more class.” Aside from that short moment of excitement, your next reaction should be to look for the nearest exit.
I assumed the protocol during a fire alarm was common knowledge: If the building is on fire, you’re supposed to leave the building.
Much to my surprise, fleeing from a fire, or the possibility of one, was not the immediate reaction of my peers.
Rather, when the fire alarm went off one morning in PG5, students began to look around, all trying to hide faces of class-is-cancelled excitement, checking to see who was going to be the first person to rise from their seat and leave classroom.
Finally, the professor headed toward the exit, left the classroom and walked towards the food court in PG5.
This is when I became dumbfounded.
Instead of shutting down the kitchens or halting sales, Dunkin’ Donuts – the only vendor open at the time – continued its sales and the line grew. It’s as if everyone was thinking, “Well if I’m going to die, I might as well have a doughnut first.”
I just wanted to scream, “No people! This is not what you do in a fire.”
I understand that most of the students in the University have lived in Miami, or at least attended high school in Miami, where school fire alarm drills occur so often students become immune to the immediate threat of a fire. But I’d like to remind everyone that this is not elementary, middle, or high school anymore; this is an extremely large institution that cannot run fire drills at will. Instead, they include fire escape procedures, among other procedures, in documents like the student handbook. And what does that mean for us students? This is not a drill.
Yes, there is always the possibility of a prankster or an accident, but what if it had not been an accident? What if this was an actual emergency? You would have a large amount of students running towards one door, while fire would have been growing, becoming a greater danger.
Sadly, this was not the first time I had been part of such a poor fire alarm response.
In an auditorium class of close to 300 students, a fire alarm went off during an exam. Again, this was a false alarm, but instead of taking the risk of comprising an exam, the professor asked students to remain in the building while he “personally investigated the situation.”
That scenario’s outcome would have been much worse, as the auditorium had a much smaller ratio of doors to students. Three hundred fleeing students and four doors is a formula for more chaos.
Again, no. Do not leave such a large mass of people in a potentially burning building because you might have to write another exam.
As adults, students need to recognize that alarms are no longer a drill; fire alarms are now a sign of an actual immediate danger. Leave the building until an official clears the return inside. It does not matter that you might be the first one taking action. Taking the right action is the correct response.
Professors should not force students to remain in a potentially harmful environment.
The University should make fire escape procedures more evident in classrooms. By now, everyone should know to head away from the fire and to the closest exit. More importantly, they should urge their faculty to react properly and correctly to an occurring fire alarm, regardless of an ongoing exam or lesson plan.
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