If the University's "Public Safety" people ever figure out who did it, there are going to be several hundred irate college students who were abruptly awoken at 6:10 this morning by a very loud, very annoying fire alarm.
Who the fuck thinks that kind of thing is funny, to wake people up prematurely and send them dashing down the stairs of a 16-story apartment building out into the cold (40�F) morning air? And then had to wait around while bleary-eyed University Police officers wandered in to figure out what was going on.
I haven't heard anything yet, but I assume -- I *hope,* actually -- that it was a prank. I heard someone else commenting later that they'd heard it was some malfunctioning sprinkler that set off the alarm -- and in that case, I will be *very* pissed at the University instead.
Damn, I need some more sleep, and Mondays are my LONG class day, too... I've got an Astronomy lab until 8:30...
Posted by Phoenix (Member # 966) on :
My block's fire alarm is always waking us up at ungodly hours for no reason. We just ignore it now...
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Maybe it was triggered by accident. It happend to me on the UCLA campus before.
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
"very loud, very annoying fire alarm"
There are quiet, unobtrusive fire alarms?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Our Dorm Leader guy and his senior assitants pulled the fire alarm at, like, 1 in the morning one night because they "wanted to get everyone's attention". He wanted to reprimand everyone for some particularly disgusting pranks that had been pulled on him and basically threatened all of us with arrest if he ever found out who it was. I was mad too. I was asleep. We all had a hella workload and I was angry that he had wasted everyone's time.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Our firealarm used to go off at least once a fortnight. And since US college kids are so much more "wacky" than ours, I'd have thought that you would have had it even more often.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
That's nothing.
For the past few weeks at a high-rise apartment building in Baltimore, some prankster a-holes have been yanking the fire-alarm as a gag.
Well guess what? There was a real fire, people didn't really evacuate, and a few were killed, and others are in the hospital recovering from jumping out of the window.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Ouch, that's bad.
I don't recall the specifics, but I seem to recall that there's a hefty fine imposed by the University for pulling the fire alarm. This is the first time we've had a non-drill alarm this school year.
quote:There are quiet, unobtrusive fire alarms?
Well, of course not. But it's worse when you're sleeping soundly, a few minutes after sunrise, and suddenly get blasted by the fire alarm that's DIRECTLY OVER YOUR BED.
*sigh*
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
I have a slight fear of fire alarms due to the one in my house going off all the time due to a wiring short. I don't think I'd be able to sleep in a room with one above the bed...
Posted by LOA (Member # 49) on :
The fire alarm went off at my work this weekend. We thought it was a drill.
Not quite right.
There was no fire... but there was water EVERYWHERE. Someone knowed one of the sprinkler heads off of the wall, causing the other sprinklers to go off on the third (top) floor and the alarm to go off.
Can you say serious water damage? Oy..... they'll be fixing up the mess from it for weeks....... 800 computers in the building, all networked through the floors, serious water damage on every level. Pleh. What a mess.
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
"knowed" the sprinklers, eh??
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
It would be cool if Liz had gotten drenched by a sprinkler.
It would be really cool if Liz was wearing her Hooters' shirt at the time.
It would really be super super super cool if someone took a photo of Liz soaked in her Hooters shirt.
It would be Omega's wet-dream is whoever did posted that pic to Flare!
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
You haven't seen stupidity until you've witnessed a guying training to be an inner city teacher force a thick plaster clothes hanger into a sprinkler head to keep his clothes nice while he showered.
You haven't seen real stupidity until you've witnessed this same guy admitting his stupidity to the campus police because he wanted to bitch at someone about getting himself and his clothes drenched.
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
At least that guy didn't try to explain that the fire alarm accidentally went off because he was trying to get laid.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
True. However, there was also the case of the young woman who had a pet snake in her room. Late one night, she decided that the lamp for the little critter was too bright for her to sleep. So, she threw a blanket on it instead of turning it off. The blanket caught fire, and the fire alarm went off. The young woman, fearing a write-up I suppose, grabbed the blanket and threw it under her bed to hide it.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
She, uh, put out the fire on it first ...
... right?
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
My school's 6th form block is an ex-British Gas building (don't ask), complete with industrial fire alarms which were fitted one per room. One of the classrooms is made up of three of the old rooms. They didn't remove the fire alarms. It was painful.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Well, I heard from my RA about it. Turns out that it was actually faulty equipment -- something happened to one of the sprinklers (not damaged by a resident, from what I've heard) that caused the alarm to go off, scare everyone outside, and then the Public Safety people couldn't shut the damn thing off!
I think we should demand a refund of our security deposits if that's the kind of quality living we can expect here... Posted by Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
Wanton sexual adventures + Crazy go nuts > Loud noise once in a while.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: She, uh, put out the fire on it first ... ... right?
Nope. She just grabbed it and tossed it under her bed. We lucked out that it didn't catch anything else on fire.
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Turns out that it was actually faulty equipment -- something happened to one of the sprinklers (not damaged by a resident, from what I've heard) that caused the alarm to go off, scare everyone outside, and then the Public Safety people couldn't shut the damn thing off!
Sounds like a broken waterflow monitor. In my experience, the slightest bit of damage to the sensor will cause it to easily go into alarm and stay in alarm until fixed or disabled.
We had a similar problem when a delivery truck struck the loading dock sprinkler pipe. The force pretty much destroyed the sensor. The fire alarm company had to walk me through disabling the waterflow monitor so that the fire alarm system could be reset.
I have way too many residence hall fire alarm stories.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
My parents always tell this story when Fire Alarms come up in a conversation (Thankfully it's none to often ).
Anyways, the story goes like this: My mother took my younger sister and myself to the bank to deposit a check. I was standing on the chair looking around when I noticed a bright shiny rectangle on the wall (Guess what it was). I was only three and didn't know what the damn thing was, so I grabbed it. I was more than startled when the alarm started blairing and I fell off the chair, and smoked my head on the floor. My sister who got really scared (She was about two) took off and ran straight into the vault. My mom was so embarassed, she still thinks that we planned to clean out the bank. That's my fire alarm story.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Which is why small children shouldn't be brought out in public.
That, and screaming and crying and kicking seats and running around insanelike at movies.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Originally posted by MinutiaeMan:
quote: Turns out that it was actually faulty equipment -- something happened to one of the sprinklers (not damaged by a resident, from what I've heard) that caused the alarm to go off, scare everyone outside, and then the Public Safety people couldn't shut the damn thing off!
I would think better that than to have it quietly fail and a fire starts for real, and kills everyone in the building, but that is just me.
I like fire alarms, when I was a teen we didn't have one, and the up stairs of my house caught fire, didn't know it till I went up and opened the hallway door, feeding it nicely. What a whooosh, that movie 'Backdraft' wasn't far off for my little fire.
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
Back when I was in the Air Force in the mid-80s, the smoke detectors in our rooms were so sensitive that if you smoked in your room (yes, we could do that back then), you had an excellent chance of setting off the fire alarm. That happened on such a regular basis that even the dorm manager started ignoring the alarms. Luckily we never had a fire.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
And yet, it didn't occur to anyone to say "don't smoke in your rooms"? Is that the infamous "military intelligence" at work there?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:I would think better that than to have it quietly fail and a fire starts for real, and kills everyone in the building, but that is just me.
Oh, undoubtedly. But I would much rather that they not malfunction AT ALL. My family and I *ARE* paying them about $10,000 a year or more. Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Eh, if you feel like, you could file a written complaint with the director of housing and vice-president of student affairs. You might see something positive come out of it. However, seeing as how cynical I am, I wouldn't hold my breath on that.
If you think things are completely out of hand and that the administration isn't doing the slightest thing to the correct the situation, complain to the city/county fire marshal. Nothing motivates dorm runners better than having a government official breathing down their necks who also has the authority to impose fines and/or shut down the hall.
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