Fire alarms irk Community House residents

There have been three false fire alarms in the Community House section of the Quadrangle this semester, Assistant Dean in Residence for Community House Diana Koros said. During the most recent incident, which occurred Sunday, Community House residents stood outside for 45 minutes, College senior and Resident Advisor Christopher Robbins said. Robbins estimated that hundreds of man-hours were wasted with that false alarm -- since numerous students, staff and employees of Physical Plant, the Philadelphia Fire Department and University Police were forced to respond to the alarm. "The University has a legal obligation to take care of this," he said. "[But] this is getting ridiculous." According to Fire and Occupational Safety Director Jim Miller, the false alarms are being investigated by Residential Maintenance. Miller said he doubts that the alarms were set off in acts of mischief. Combustion probably activated the alarms, he said. In an incident that occurred last weekend, for instance, Miller said smoke from a barbeque may have set off smoke detectors in Community House. He noted, however, that there are no smoke detectors in the halls or rooms of Community House. Only the elevator shafts and air handling ducts have detectors. Miller said the University plans to eventually equip all campus facilities with smoke detectors throughout the rooms and hallways. Fire and Occupational Safety Department officials have also been dealing with mechanical problems in the Community House's alarm system. In Sunday's incident, the alarms went off, but the signal was not transmitted to the master panel that would have activated response from the fire department and Physical Plant, Miller said. Policy dictates that the RAs must call 511 in the event of a fire alarm. In the recent incidents, the appropriate departments responded to each call, Miller said. Despite the problems with Community House's fire alarms, Koros said the building is safe. And College freshman Jaclyn Halpern said she is relieved that the fire alarms are functioning. "At least I know they work so if anything happens, they'll go off," she said.