The dangers of false alarms

A flurry of false alarms meant that many residents of Hamilton House didn't evacuate during the real thing. So it comes as little surprise to us that Saturday's fire on the 11th floor of the high rise left many building residents reluctant to evacuate until police and firefighters went around knocking on doors. After all, you can only cry wolf so many times before people stop responding. Administrators have faulted students for remaining in the building on Saturday night and failing to place their trust in a system designed to protect them. But such criticism misses the point. The reluctance of students to leave the high rise reflects a state of affairs in the high rise where students no longer associate the sound of the alarm with the need to evacuate the building. There are various causes for this malaise: faulty wiring caused a spate of early wake-up calls in the fall, and a combination of overbaked brownies and drunken students has probably accounted for more than a few false alarms as well. But of all the fire alarms over the course of the past year, Saturday's was only the second caused by a fire. In each and every other case, students who remained in the high rise were perfectly safe. Some of those who stayed in their rooms on Saturday probably haven't left the building for any of the previous alarms, while others doubtless learned to sleep through the noise only after several months of practice. But there are apparently not very many students left in Hamilton who rush outside when the alarm sounds. Stupid or otherwise, the failure of students to exit the building is perfectly understandable: The alarms have become nothing more than a source of annoyance. And that is a very dangerous situation when a real fire triggers the alarms. Of course, we encourage students to follow proper procedures each and every time fire alarms sound. But it would be plain stupid to expect that students will oblige as long as the alarms retain little connection to the purpose for which they were created.