We have a fire drill/evacuation drill at our office today. Which means , the fire alarm will ring and we need to run down the stairs to an assembly point. I have had been to many fire drills in this and previous company. But everytime its only one thing that comes to my mind.
Why do they have to do a pre-announced fire drill. How can they practice the evacuation , when everyone knows there is no emergency. Incase of actual emergency , whats tough to manage is the panic. When we work in a office , we usually know the way out. But in case of actual emergency , its the sudden panic and the rush to escape first that causes the problem. In these pre announced drills , that is not there. People happily wait for the time of the drill , happily walk down the stairs and wait for the head count. Some of them escape the drill by straying at the ground floor.
I feel , that they should either only a proper training , or should do a surprise fire drill. At the most they can announce that there will be a fire drill this week. No date and time should be announced.Only then can they simulate the actual situation. Only then they can know how people will react , what is missing , how much time people actually take to evacuate, what happens to people in meeting rooms and toilets etc , and plan better. Don't you think so ?
Friday, February 15, 2008
Fire Drill - Why ?
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2 comments:
Totally agree with you..since people know its a drill..the feeling of emergency/panic is not there. And people surely behave differently in emergency which they themselves wouldn't know until actually in such a situation.
Give this as a suggestion. I'm sure mangement will hear to it.
I am surprised that they announce the exact time of the fire drill. What I have seen at my workplace is that they give a time frame of a few days during which the drill happens anytime. In fact, we haven't had a fire drill in many months as the fire alarm has been actually going off once every couple of months!!
The evacuation drills do help in figuring out the emergency procedures and escape paths, which we don't care about on regular days. This also helps reduce panic during a real emergency because our mind understands that a (familiar) working process is in place.
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