Up against the fire drill

Friday, September 30, 2005

We were told to prepare for the fire drill this morning, organized by the building management. Just before the bell went off, our kind security guard came to "escort" us down the lift. He said if we don't go down earlier, we gotta walk down the stairs because once the bell goes off, the lifts can't be used.

I was pretty unresponsive and didn't wanna move my butt, frankly. So I said I'll walk down the stairs later. He said if we wanted, we could stay in, he'll lock the door from the outside and we just hafta stay quiet inside. If the Bomba people ask, we should say we have super urgent work to finish. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Only "price" we've gotta pay for staying in was to bear the loud alarm for something like 15 minutes. When it finally died down, I could feel the ringing in my ears. Have I gone deaf??? Nah...still can hear my own stomach growling with hunger.

2 comments:

Bergen said...

I know it is irritating to some people who have never been through a real fire to consider fire drill a nuisance to their schedule but I've been on an oil rig long enough to know that a drill no matter how stupid it may look comes in handy when the real fire starts to disorientate senses out of order and you don't know what to do and wishing you'd gone through the drill to know what to do.

In real-life fire situation I've seen guys who made fun of fire drill ran around in circle like chicken with its head chopped off all because they didn't map out escape mode in their head and had it not for a quick thinking of a foreman, a few of them would have taken the easiest way out of jumping into the water instead of making it to assigned zone where emergency craft are located.

I guess you can afford not to go through the drill because a building isn't like a rig where it sits under highly explosive material and a bit of ash from a cigarette can ignite a fireball to blow the rig and everyone in it to oblivion.

Eternity said...

hey, read your blog and can understand how you feel about taking the drills seriously. if ever i'm in that situation i bet i'll be talking differently.