As the sirens sounded, students fled their classrooms relieved of their rigorous classwork. The following day, students and teachers alike were exasperated with the repeated wailing and flashing of the fire alarms.

These alarms struck twice in as many days on Oct. 12-13.

Some students believe that the alarms were a result of a failed chemistry lab. Others believe that it was a prankster, who wanted to disrupt order on campus.

John Bicking, facilities director, disproved these theories. “We had a faulty pull station. It erroneously gave us incorrect readings. It caused several things that happened on the network. It wasn’t a ‘prank pull’ on either day.”

The faulty pull station was located outside of the boys’ locker room, near the water fountains.
Bicking went on to say that false alarms are prevented by “yearly testing.” The testing also makes sure all alarms are working in the case of a real fire.

“With anything electronic… you’re going to have some kind of a glitch a some point,” said Bicking, indicating that the problem was the result of normal wear and tear.

Most students were fed up with the alarms by the second false alarm on that Thursday. Freshman Emir Karabeg was in his Chemistry class when the first false alarms struck. “I thought it was a drill and just walked outside. I didn’t really mind it, and it was actually a bit of a relief,” he said.

“The second time it was just disrupting class and not fun,” he said, “I really just wanted to stay inside.”

Karabeg’s feeling on the fire alarms is similar to that of most of the student body: at first, they weren’t a big deal; then the second time, they were flat out annoying. The flashing lights, on fire pull stations, continued throughout the day making the situation even more annoying.

In the end, we should be thankful for the Facilities Staff, which handled the situation so well, and be happy that it was not a real fire.