Building Security, Alarms, & Evacuations

Sister Mary Lunatic klaatu at primenet.com
Thu Sep 13 22:16:20 UTC 2001


I've seen survivors of the World Trade Center disaster relate how many of
their co-workers either stayed at their desks or dawdled around before
deciding to leave the building, and who  perhaps died as a result of their
procrastination.

I used to be employed by a fairly large company, in a building that housed
approximately 3000 employees.  At least once a year, we would hold a
full-scale practice evacuation, with all employees leaving the building.
However, we knew exactly when the evacuation would occur, and treated it as
a lark and a mini-holiday from work.  During the year, we would also have 2
or 3 tests of the alarm systems, but would not actually get up and leave the
building.

HOWEVER, occasionally, perhaps once or twice a year at least, there was a
false alarm.  The alarm system might accidentally have been turned on by a
careless security guard, or it might suffer a short-circuit.  On those
occasions, NO ONE even attempted to evacuate in the belief that a real
emergency might be occurring.  The most we would do is stick our heads out
into the hallways and see if anything was going on.  Therefore, I can see
where a real emergency danger situation would catch us all still in our
offices, wondering if anything serious was actually happening.

Has anyone else had similar experiences?  It seems to me that this might
explain why so many did not leave the WTC immediately when they first became
aware of a problem.

SML
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