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Rage against fire drills


Am I the only one concerned about the growing number of fire drills that occur in the residence halls at UTM?

I understand that it is important for the residents to know exactly where to go if there is a fire, but we’re college students now. How much sense does it take to know to leave out of the nearest exit? If you don’t know that much, they shouldn’t have let you out of elementary school.

A few weeks ago, McCord had another one of its pointless drills. They started the alarm at about 9:15 p.m. This was my nightly shower time. After checking to make sure that there was no real threat of a fire, I climbed back into the shower. Ten minutes later, a figure in black came into the shower with me telling me that I should be outside. I was thinking, “They can’t be serious!”

This was the day before the snowstorm caused UTM to close for the first time in thirty years. The wind chill that night had to be at least -10°F. Did the RA actually expect me to get out of the shower dripping wet, throw on some clothes and stand outside for 15-20 minutes catching pneumonia until they decided that the drill is over? Get real. During the season that three-fourths of the entire campus is affected by the common cold, they chose the coldest day of the week during the time when the wind chill is the fiercest to conduct a fire drill! How sweet of them!

Last semester, we had more fire drills than any other dorm put together. How many times do we have to practice being prodded out of the dorm like cattle and running to the same spot?!? Trust me. It’s not rocket science!

The drills are getting to be like the boy who cried wolf. When McCord's lobby actually did catch on fire, there were so many people still up in their rooms because they thought it was another pointless drill. If the fire would’ve actually spread, they might have been in some serious danger and it would be the fault of the dorm administrators. If we didn’t have so many of them, we wouldn’t have to decide whether or not something is really going on.

This is just a message to all the RAs and RHAs running the residence halls at UTM: Please! Let’s end the pointless fire drills!

Kyle Ashli McGowan is a freshman Nursing major from Memphis.