I grew up in a small town and attended a small high school with about 1,000 students. Like all schools, we practiced fire drills each month. We calmly and quietly walked down the halls in single file and didn’t stop until we were at least 50 feet away from the building.
Year after year we practiced those drills so that we would react automatically if we were ever faced with a fire in the building. The best laid plans of mice and men. . . .
One day a small group of girls were smoking in the bathroom, and one of them apparently threw a smoldering cigarette into the trashcan. Sometime later another girl opened the door to the bathroom and smoke billowed out. Since the bathroom was close to the main office, the girl ran up the hall and told the secretary that there was a fire in the building.
The secretary did indeed react automatically. She ran over to the intercom, and announced in her loudest and firmest voice, “There’s a fire in the building! Run, run, run! This is not a drill! There’s a fire in the building. Run, run, run!”
We definitely evacuated the building quickly – very quickly but perhaps not as quietly or as calmly as we had rehearsed.
Someone called the fire department, and they put out the fire in the trashcan.
Order was restored.
No one had ever pulled the fire alarm.
I suspect the secretary may have revisited the proper fire drill procedure on subsequent days.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott
2 comments on this topic
27. February - 7:15 pm
Lol Edie….I bet she did!
28. February - 1:19 pm
She told people to run?! I’m surprised she didn’t suggest trampling.
1. March - 7:48 am
I can’t remember the full story, but it seems that we all knew it was a trashcan on fire, and we weren’t too worried. Of course, we were teenagers and we didn’t worry about much of anything other than peer pressure in those days.