View Full Version : Safety and Security - your habits?
I've just returned from a delightful 3-day stay in Calif. for a conference. However, while we were there, the hotel fire alarm went off Sat. at 1:30 am. My roomie and I got out of the room and up to the main check-in area where we were told to exit and stay outside, which we did.
Many other guests were out there waiting with us, and after about 15 minutes we got the all clear to return to our room. But, as I found out the next morning, many others never even left their room and rolled over and went back to sleep. I was pretty surprised at adults taking something like a fire alarm so casually. One person even told me that he figured if it was really serious then the firefighters would be knocking on his door to tell him to evacuate.
I had thought that one of the safety lessons of 9/11 and other tragedies is, when there's fire, you get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. I took it very seriously but I still can't quite believe others did not. Am I missing something?
You are not missing something! Folks who don't attend to fire safety have no clue about how fires, and more importantly smoke, acts.
ApatheticNoMore
7-15-13, 9:19pm
Yea but have you ever worked anywhere where they didn't have emergency drills? Except for extremely small companies I haven't. So the drill is get out the building and it's not that easily forgotten. Mind you I was completely fluxomed about whether I should or should not take the elevator in a REAL (not just a drill) bomb scare ... I forget when are we supposed to take the elevators again, ok we're not supposed to take them in an earthquake but in a bomb? Der ... I took the elavator - fastest way out ...
The fire alarm went off in my office last fall. We're the only company in this two story building with attached warehouse. It was not a drill. I had a couple of coworkers who would NOT leave their desks. I had to turn on my drill sergeant voice to roust them ("Move NOW!"). They were very slow in leaving, turning off their computers, etc. I finally told them they can burn up, I don't care, I'm saving my butt. Their eyes got very big and they finally did leave.
I was one of two people who actually got up to get out immediately, as soon as the fire alarm sounded.
I've been in hotels when the alarm went off twice and I left my room, even when it meant going down about twenty flights of stairs (half-dressed--I had been sleeping). I think the opposite way of the people who said if it were real the fire marshals would knock. My thought is, if it's not serious, the PA system will soon tell us to go back to our rooms.
I can't imagine not getting up and leaving. Geez. How dumb can one be. The really sad bit about people not leaving is that if it really were a serious fire those people would have slowed down the fire department's rescue efforts and possibly endangered the lives of people who either truly slept through the alarm or were not able to get out on their own for whatever reason.
It was interesting to note the change in fire drills for NYC office buildings after 9/11. The advice pre-9/11 was, take the stairs down at least two floors and re-enter the building at the first re-entry floor. Every 4th floor has a re-entry door. (the fire alarm only goes off on the fire floor and floor above it). The pre-9/11 thinking was that more people would be injured walking all the way down then would be by fire on a floor below the fire in a fire resistive building. Now they still make that recommendation but advise people who want to to immediately leave the building. I had a couple of coworkers post-9/11 who would do just that every time the fire alarm went off.
Of course, from an insurance perspective the pre-9/11 thinking was that at most 8-9 floors would be damaged in a high rise fire. 3-4 above by smoke, 3-4 below by water. The rest of the building was expected to survive without damage. Obviously property insurers have since rethought that after the debacle of the WTC insurance lawsuit where several of the companies insuring the WTC ended up paying out double the policy limits because it was decided that two events had occurred based on those policies' definition of event.
I can't imagine not getting up and leaving. Geez. How dumb can one be. The really sad bit about people not leaving is that if it really were a serious fire those people would have slowed down the fire department's rescue efforts and possibly endangered the lives of people who either truly slept through the alarm or were not able to get out on their own for whatever reason.
Exactly so.
iris lilies
7-15-13, 11:00pm
I would never never stay in one of those tinder boxes during a fire alarm.
A beautiful young women I worked with decades ago was killed in the big MGM hotel fire in Las Vegas in 1980. She had been in the Miss World contest a few years prior. I'll never forget how she died.
iris lilies
7-15-13, 11:41pm
The fire alarm went off in my office last fall. We're the only company in this two story building with attached warehouse. It was not a drill. I had a couple of coworkers who would NOT leave their desks. I had to turn on my drill sergeant voice to roust them ("Move NOW!"). They were very slow in leaving, turning off their computers, etc. I finally told them they can burn up, I don't care, I'm saving my butt. Their eyes got very big and they finally did leave.
I was one of two people who actually got up to get out immediately, as soon as the fire alarm sounded.
I tell my staff to leave immediately and I stand there and watch them until they do.
We share a building with a middle school and the little dears in the school pull the fire alarm regularly as a prank. We go out 2 or 3 times a year on that gig.
Iris, I'm not a supervisor, so that's as far as I could go.
Was also reminded of a 9/11 story in a book written by a fire captain who was there in the WTC. He and his crew were helping to clear floors and get people out, when he looked in an office and saw a young man by himself typing away on his computer. He yelled at the guy something like "Fire dept., get out now!" and the guy said, "not yet, I'm working on something." The captain then went right next to him and said, "Get out now!" and the guy then put up his hand to the captain in a "talk to the hand" gesture.
Of course, that infuriated the captain whereupon he yanked the guy up out of his chair so hard that "his silk shirt ripped" and he shoved the guy towards the exit door and told his firefighters to make sure the guy went down the stairs. He said the guy looked very surprised like no one had ever talked like that to him before.
I've always wondered if that guy made it out and if he would ever admit he was the idiot who almost lost his life...
The fire alarm went off in my office last fall. We're the only company in this two story building with attached warehouse. It was not a drill. I had a couple of coworkers who would NOT leave their desks. I had to turn on my drill sergeant voice to roust them ("Move NOW!"). They were very slow in leaving, turning off their computers, etc. I finally told them they can burn up, I don't care, I'm saving my butt. Their eyes got very big and they finally did leave.
I was one of two people who actually got up to get out immediately, as soon as the fire alarm sounded.
One of my conference attendees said she had rousted her husband after the fire alarm sounded, but he was slow too - after he got dressed, she was waiting for him by their room door only to look in and find him combing his hair at the bathroom mirror!
Wow that is crazy... I thought that everybody would stand up and go crazy and run for their lives... I would do so, ok not crazy;)
Was also reminded of a 9/11 story in a book written by a fire captain who was there in the WTC.
Morgan Stanley was the largest tenant in the WTC on 9/11. They only suffered a few employee deaths because their director of security had thought about, and prepared for, the possibility that the building would be attacked. Consequently everyone who worked for them had been drilled for evacuation on a regular basis and responded appropriately. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla
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