False fire alarms keep students up at night

Quadrangle residents are tired, but not because of round-the-clock studying or partying. Instead, students are losing sleep because false fire alarms have constantly interrupted their slumber in the middle of the night. To help students sleep easier, University officials have taken action to curtail the excessive number of false fire alarms. Assistant Dean of Residences Jane Rogers said a five-member "ad hoc" committee, consisting of the four assistant deans in the Quad and First Year Programs Director Tomas Leal, was formed last month to address the issue of false fire alarms. "We want to let people know what they're getting when they pull a fire alarm," Rogers said. "The Philidelphia Fire Department responds and they are taken out of service. They can't respond to other fires." Rogers said the Quad has never had such a major fire alarm problem in the three years that she has been at the University. She speculated that the Quad must have had over 10 false fire alarms already this year. The three fire alarms pulled simultaneously on December 18 led Rogers to believe the alarms were pulled "as a coordinated activity," she said. "Every year there are occasional false alarms, but the rash we had at the end of first semester was really unusual -- unusual in the frequency in which they occurred," she said. Rogers said the committee wants to make the Quad community aware that there are criminal violations associated with false fire alarms. "There are potential legal liabilities that come with the pulling of an alarm," she added. "The individual is subject to criminal prosecution by Philidelphia and the University judicial system. Pulling a fire alarm can be a misdemeanor, but can also be a felony." The committee is in the process of drafting a false fire alarm policy statement for the Quad and are offering up to a $500 reward for anyone who turns in the person who has been pulling the alarms. Rogers said she is worried that students have not been leaving the building during the alarms and that they might remain in their rooms if there is a real fire. "I don't want to be the one to talk to the parents of the kid who gets caught in his room because of a real fire," she said. "It's only human nature to hear the alarm at 3:30 a.m. and say 'Oh, it's only a false alarm,' but you always hear stories of fires racing through buildings. The night there is a fire, people could really get hurt. This is at the base of my concern." Students said they are angry with the overabundance of the false alarms. "They're really immature if they get their entertainment from making other people stop what they're doing and run outside," College freshman Valerie Brand said yesterday. "They're very foolish," Wharton freshman Marisa Carson added. "They just cause problems for everyone else. They wake us up in the middle of the night and make us go outside in our pajamas in the freezing cold."

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