TWeeD ([info]densaer) wrote,
@ 2008-08-14 17:59:00
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And then we had a fire alarm.
Why is it that smart, intelligent engineers ignore fire alarms until the big guys with SCBAs are right in front of them? "Oh, I didn't know it was real..."

The Captain was *not* happy. I was the Incident Commander.

Guess who heard about it?

It's been one of those days.

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[info]rfrench
2008-08-15 05:55 am UTC (link)
So there was this boy who cried wolf...

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[info]densaer
2008-08-15 07:15 am UTC (link)
It's cultural, I guess. I found out that our Aussie brethren don't evacuate until someone comes in and says so, even ignoring the horns and whatnot. Here, we get cited if they find someone...

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[info]rfrench
2008-08-15 04:37 pm UTC (link)
I don't know if it's cultural or not. But I do expect that an "intelligent engineer" knows perfectly well that 99% of the time a fire alarm is a false alarm, and they feel safe taking the risk.

At the risk of raising your ire as an EMT first responder, I'll tell you that I never believe the fire alarms in hotels. I've been in too many cases where we evacuated the hotel, stood outside in the cold/rain/wind for hours in the middle of the night with hardly any clothing, almost missed an international flight because we couldn't get our luggage, etc. and there has never been an actual problem (I think once someone had overcooked the morning pastries in the hotel kitchen). So now I just hide in the hotel room and ignore people knocking on the door until they go away. Given the risk profile, I think it's much more likely I'm going to die commuting to work on 101 or flying with a student, or more likely falling off a ladder at home, than die in a work or hotel fire.


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[info]katishna
2008-08-16 01:24 am UTC (link)
We had TWO fire alarms this week. That's pretty normal where I work. We usually have at least one. Everyone leaves, but it's all very orderly and slow getting out. If there was ever really a fire I don't know what would happen.

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