Fire Drill!

[morgana]

I always used to dread fire drills a few years ago--at that time, our staff (which spends a good portion of our shift outside the building, or on completely different floors, mind you) was the de facto fire-wardens for our floor, meaning we were expected to go around and roust everyone once the alarm went off.

Of course, most of these people are WORKING, damnit, and don't want to spend 20-45 minutes waiting outside while the fire department confirms that our 30-story building is all-clear. And this is my fault, of course.

You wouldn't have had any trouble from me. Quite the contrary, in fact; if I hear a fire alarm, don't stop in my path. I'll run you over.

But then, I've been in a office fire. I was on seventh floor, the fire was on the fourth floor. The whole fourth floor. As in, black smoke pouring out the windows, and the stairwell wall too hot to touch as we went past.

Nobody got seriously injured, we were only off work three days while the damage was resolved, but still . . . *shiver* I pay attention to fire alarms.

[Rine]

The one time we had a non-drill alarm was when the pressure inside the building went very low and triggered the alarm. I think that was the explanation. We had to stand outside for about thirty minutes and it was very difficult trying to get the customers to get out of the building and trying to get them not to go inside the building.

Unfortunately, there was no eye candy that day. However, the firefighters regularly train the new firefighters in our parking lot and sometimes they come in to use our bathrooms.

[Retail Associate]

At my store we don't have fire drills like most places. What they do is get on the PA and say "Code 100 (or whatever it is - I can never remember) to Paint (or some random dept)" "Code 100 to Paint" "Code 100 to Paint"

What we as employees are then supposed to do is, find a fire extinquisher and head to Paint to put out any potential fire.

Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

They used to have these Code calls quite often but nobody ever showed up with an extinquisher.

Gee, I wonder why.

.

[Primer]

Let's see...non-drill fire alarms at work...

I missed out on this one, but last semester, the alarms went off in one building; everybody evacuated, except for one student who is wholly dependent on a wheelchair. The people took her to the "emergency rescue station" on the 2nd floor, and abandoned her! Thank goodness it was a false alarm!

In my own building, the chemistry lab is up on the 7th floor. I'm sure everyone is familiar with how careless Chem I students can be with chemicals being poured down the drain... Usually, not a problem, but one day, we, on the 6th floor, noticed something leaking from the ceiling...and it wasn't water! Had to evacuate for that one.

Then we've had the usual popcorn burned in microwave ovens, or coffeepots left to boil dry...

For most people, it makes for a break in the day. For some of us, it's a real chore getting down from the 9th floor (or above) when the alarms go off. I've offered to sign a paper absolving everyone of responsibility if they would just let me stay and burn up, but they won't go for that.

[hawkchick11]

We just had a fire alarm go off at work on Monday. We had to stand outside in 5 degree weather til the fire trucks came, and searched the call center and warehouse. Our warehouse isn't small either, they just doubled the size of it so its like 2 football fields next to each other.

Gotta love the construction guys who set it off

[wolfie]

Did they accidentally knock off a sprinkler head? Had that happen at a previous workplace.

In a lot of places, there's a flow sensor on the sprinkler system, so the alarm will go off if a sprinkler is triggered, even if nobody pulls a manual alarm station.

[Lingering Grin]

At the movie theater I worked at, we had to evacuate several times due to non-drill fire alarms.

Usually, it was just burnt popcorn. Which was annoying, because there were only 3 of us working there that acctually gave a damn about getting people OUT of the theater. Not to mention the customers that would want to place their food order now and pay "after the alarm"... Yeah, I'm gonna spend 10 mins taking your order while the room fills with SMOKE. Get the hell out!

Then after the alarm, everyone finds out that they have to get a refund and come back to see their movie later, as there was no way of pausing the movies, so the entire time the alarm is going, they're missing parts of their movie. Cost the theater a pretty good amount each time it happened (and yes, the employee responsible for burning the popcorn would get written up).


However, one time, the theater almost got fined BIG TIME. The cooling unit used to keep the soda fountains / ice bins / front-end refrigerators burned out. They had a repair man come in to fix it, and he had to solder some wires back in place to get it working again. Well, he happened to slip and sent a pretty good puff of smoke straight into the smoke detector (which was RIGHT above the cooling unit).

The fire chief came down, pulled the GM aside and said "We'll just pretend you didn't have someone back here welding." (He was exaggerating =P)

[MadMike]

At one time, my job was in a building that was shared with several other businesses, including a doctor's office. One day, some little kid in the doctor's office saw the fire alarm and pulled it. On one of the coldest days of the year, we all had to run outside.

Worse yet, after the firemen determined that it was a false alarm and left, one of the firetrucks clipped a parked car on the way out.

[Igorina]

Sorry to resurrect an old-ish thread, but I thought some of you might get a kick out of this story.

I used to be a 'butterfly girl', which is to say the university lab I worked for had a butterfly colony I helped take care of.

One saturday, I'm in the converted broom closet that stored the butterflies, wiping down the adult's cage, when the fire alarm starts blaring in my ear. Right, okay, time to exit, but first I need to close the door for the adult's cage just in case it's a false alarm so they don't escape.

I'm halfway through securing everything when a police owman opens the door and tells me to exit the building. Now. There were mentions of fines made if I didn't. I finish and exit.

As I go into the hall way and down the stairs to the first floor, the air-handling system kicks in, it's so strong my hair is being whipped around. I get to the front doors and it takes two people to put enough force on the door to open, as the building is sucking in air at such a high rate.

There's a group of about 30 people out front, and we're all commenting on the half a dozen police cars blocking the road with lights flashing. And then the Hazmat bus arrives...

It turns out that a grad student in a lab on the 6th floor had spilt about 8 microliters (droplet sized amount) of a phosphorous 33 (? not quite sure about that isotope number). Suffice to say it's a radioactive isotope used for marking genes in organisms and has a half life of about 8 days.

Had this occurred on a weekday, the Safety Office would have sent some one over with some paper towels, some cleaner, and a small radioactive waste bag. The bench would have been wiped down, and left alone for two weeks or so.

However, becuase this was the weekend, there was no one at the Safety Office. So when the grad student called to report the spill, she was instructed to call 911 and report the spill.

This is why the air-handling system in the building started sucking in air, to prevent any potential lethal vapors from escaping to the outside. This is why the street was blocked off. This is why the armoured Hazmat bus came by.

In the end the Hazmat folks walked out with a small bag of waste, and the poor embarassed grad student apologized and explained what the fuss was about.

For myself, I thought it was neat to see the Hazmat team and equipment, and the alarm meant I got paid to spend an hour outside on a pleasant spring day.

[Dips]

It turns out that a grad student in a lab on the 6th floor had spilt about 8 microliters (droplet sized amount) of a phosphorous 33 (? not quite sure about that isotope number).

The isotope number was probably 32. We used P32-labelled nucleotides all the time when I worked in the research lab. The pure stuff is really hot, but the half-life is 15 days, so it doesn't take long for it to decay to background levels.

And yeah, I've spilled it. Unless it came into contact with someone's skin or got ingested (neither of which ever happened), the safety department didn't need to be involved at all. We just cleaned it up carefully then monitored the area to make sure we got it all.

Being as it's phosphorus, it's very soluable in detergent and it's easy to clean up. The biggest nuisance was having to work around the protective plexiglass shield.

Oh, and the paperwork.

[Primer]

More fun and games today.

The college installed new clocks/emergency notification systems over winter break. Normally, the clocks alternate between the date and the (wrong) time. Today, during class, I looked up to check on how much time I had left so I would know how to pace the rest of the material, and I see, not the time, but "LOCKDOWN, LOCKDOWN, person on campus with a weapon. Close and lock all doors and stay away from windows." alternating with, "FIRE EMERGENCY, Evacuate building immediately!"

ok.....there were no sirens or announcements, so I'm pretty sure it's a false alarm, which does happen frequently on my campus....but the students start freaking out and insist I close and lock the door. No problem, I can understand where they are coming from, so I did. By the time class is over, there is still no announcement, and the sign is still alternating messages, so to reassure the students, I called the main office to verify what was going on.

Yes, it was a false alarm.

And it was happening ONLY IN MY room!

It was still going on when my 2nd class was finished.

I'll have to stick my head in the room tomorrow to see if it's been fixed yet.