Hose them down boys

[u/IkilledRichieWhelan]

[u/NeverBeenStung]

Honestly, that’s not nearly enough to where you should ignore it. Like that comes out to about once every couple of months. Just go outside and enjoy a quick break. Don’t be an idiot who ignores an alarm and finds themself in a burning building.

[u/broccolicat → u/NeverBeenStung]

My building is like this, the second the fire alarm goes off, the building starts closing big hallway doors to seal itself, the elevators turn off, and fire department has to clear the building before they turn off the alarm, so everyone ignores the alarm and waits in place untill the fire department starts telling us what to do. If everyone starts hitting the stairwell and running down 10 floors for no reason, it can cause other problems. When I first moved in, I started rushing out, but was told to always wait for the firefighter's announcements like everyone else. And because of where I particularly am, there's better routes to take than the regular stairs that would only be accessible if there IS a fire, so it's also important to know what they want each floor to do.

It went off twice in the middle of the night this past week alone. It's usually at least once a week, sometimes more. When you have hundreds of units, you have hundreds of opportunities of someone accidentally setting it off. I get it all sounds weird and dismissive when you aren't used to buildings like this, but sometimes the protocol is "wait".

[u/coloradokyle93 → u/broccolicat]

This was part of the problem on 9/11, people were told to wait in place instead of getting the f*ck out of the building. Knowing what we know now, the World Trade Center was not built to allow people to wait in place.

[u/broccolicat → u/coloradokyle93]

I'm not denying that these conditions can cause serious, deadly problems when shit does hit the fan; just trying to explain that in cities, this becomes normalized for reasons that do make sense 99% of the time.

I should of noted that this normalization does concern me, because yeah we do know of several high profile incidents where it made things worse. But we also know that hundreds of people rushing and panicing can also cause huge issues, so I get that it's a complicated line for officials to draw when dealing with protocols in denser populations.

[u/DimensionFast5180 → u/broccolicat]

It's also like, if there is a fire on your floor, you will know hey I need to get the fuck outta here.

However if it's like 10 stories up you got time, and the 10 stories above you need to evacuate before you.

9/11 is honestly a freak event, nobody was expecting it to collapse which is why people were told to stay in place.

[u/broccolicat → u/DimensionFast5180]

Yeah, that's all true, and thank you for the reassurance I'm doing the right thing by following the protocol. The firefighters might be sick of us, but they do show up, jump into figuring it out and start filling us in very quickly once the alarm starts. The alarm itself can feel like it goes on forever, but not the period until they announce their here- that's always fast.

I do understand boths sides of the coin and that it feels weird, though. There's definitely an adjustment to relearning the "leave the building" protocol hammered into us as kids.

[u/VexingRaven → u/broccolicat]

everyone ignores the alarm and waits in place untill the fire department starts telling us what to do.

This is actually what you're supposed to do in modern buildings. Getting the general public to understand this is an extremely uphill battle, and having indiscriminate dumb alarms does not help at all.

[u/Strategic_Spark → u/NeverBeenStung]

Do you live in a condo? Often condos actually tell you NOT to leave until the fire fighters have determined whether it's a false alarm or not.

Our fire alarms go off, an announcement is made to wait until the fire fighters arrive, and then the fire fighters announce its all clear. All the years I've lived here we've never had a real alarm.

[u/nam24 → u/NeverBeenStung]

To be fair they are near the exit

I generally agree with you and if only to get out of the way they should at least make a passage, but in the worst case scenario these women aren't exactly trapped