At the beginning of every semester, resident assistants promise to enforce quiet hours in the residence halls so that the students who live on campus can have enough quiet to study and rest. However, one glaring, or I should say, blaring exception to quiet hours is the rude awakening caused by fire drills every semester.
SMU’s interest in preparing students for an actual fire is well founded, as there are approximately 1,800 fires in residence halls and Greek housing that cause many deaths nationwide every year.
Though fires in residence halls are a concern, most of these fires occur on campuses without the staunch safety rules that SMU has. SMU inspects for and bans some of the most common causes of fires in residence halls, such as smoking, candles, extension cords and overloaded power outlets.
One common cause of fires that SMU cannot ban is cooking, but cooking appliances in many residence halls here only consist of a microwave. Furthermore, SMU’s residence halls are made with concrete walls that would prevent most fires from spreading quickly.
The problem is that SMU’s practice of regular fire drills on campus is too disruptive and provides little benefit. SMU claims that the “emergency evacuation exercises” are to “insure the efficient and safe use of all available exit facilities” and “familiarize occupants with sound and audibility of alarms,” along with providing “an opportunity to test the alarm system.” However, these reasons for fire drills are not worth the disruption caused to the 2,000 or so sleeping residents.
Throughout primary and secondary school, most of us probably had a fire drill twice per year and our experience with fire alarms means that we know to exit calmly and quietly.
Residents don’t need to be “familiarized” with the fire alarms in residence halls; we all understand that a loud alarm means we should exit the building.
Testing the alarm system is an understandable reason for having an evacuation exercise, but the alarm system does not need to be tested at five in the morning — the alarm could be tested during the afternoon, or even before school starts, so that students are not disturbed.
Not only are the reasons for having fire drills invalid, but also there may even be a detriment to having fire drills. In a real fire, all doors should be closed to deter the fire from spreading. But, during these exercises, many students don’t bring their room keys and they leave their room door open so that they can return. If a real fire were to occur, students would likely follow the same habits they develop during these fire drills and leave their doors open.
While I’m opposed to these evacuation exercises, I still value safety over convenience. In fact, I believe that SMU can help its students be safer without waking them up in the middle of the night.
At the beginning of the school year, SMU has the “Great Escape” an event during which students try to escape a simulated fire while practicing all the fire safety rules that they have learned over the years.
I propose that SMU require all on-campus residents to attend the Great Escape and eliminate the beginning-of-semester fire drills that annoy us all. This solution would be win-win: By attending the Great Escape, students would be more prepared to escape an actual fire than they will by simply going through the motions of a fire drill, and students would appreciate not being awoken. Also, I’m sure the fire safety inspector would be happy to avoid the scowls he endures from students as they file back into the residence hall towards their warm beds.
Troy Heerwagen is a junior mechanical engineering major. He may be contacted at [email protected].
