[some ambient noise of chatter, footsteps, etc.]
Northwestern’s campus is lively and loud. Students chatter in libraries and dining halls, heavy equipment echoes through the air at multiple construction sites, and tour groups fill the streets with eager prospective students and parents.
However, there’s one sound that many students have come to dread:
[fire alarm noise]
While one must applaud the school for its high number of fire alarms on campus, it seems that many have a mind of their own.
To understand the impacts of these frequent occurrences, we spoke to Northwestern students about their personal experiences with the sounds that sometimes feel like a part of their daily lives.
Sydney Chan, a sophomore student in the school of Communication, is a member of SAI. The music fraternity recently went through two fire alarms in the same night, both caused by cooking mishaps.
[some cooking ambient noises]
SYDNEY CHAN: I heard it was like, a pork cutlet was being cooked in the microwave. They let us back in and then like two or three hours later it went off again. I think someone left a pot on the burner and just left it there.
While these accidents could have caused real danger, Chan and her neighbors felt more inconvenienced than in fear for their lives.
CHAN: I just felt minorly inconvenienced because I had a lot of work to do. I think the same goes for everyone else. They didn’t look scared. They just looked confused and a little annoyed because some people wanted to take showers or just finish their work and go to sleep.
The same goes for fire drills: Chan explained that she intentionally avoided them by staying outside of her dorm after learning about when they would take place.
CHAN: Honestly, I wasn’t here for the actual fire drill. I got the email and I think I made a point of just not being in my dorm for most of the day.
While Chan used school communications to her advantage, some students are left in the dark during these potential emergencies. Freshman Shaylee Fabio lives in Elder, where a fire alarm mishap and absence of clear communication during her first week left many confused.
SHAYLEE FABIO: Apparently there was something wrong with the fire alarms and basically every floor except my floor, the fourth floor, had their fire alarms going off for carbon monoxide, but the fourth didn’t receive any type of warning so we found out that our building had supposed carbon monoxide through GroupMe, and it was very surprising and I was very shocked.
The presence of the fatal gas was thankfully a false alarm, but the lack of communication amongst residents could have dangerous implications.
FABIO: Even though the carbon monoxide was a false alarm, if it was real, which they thought it was, the entirety of the fourth floor was unaware of it and I thought that was very concerning. We couldn’t hear anything.
On campus, alarms don’t just go off in case of fire, but other emergencies as well. Medill freshman Georgia Rau recalls an instance when her political theory class was interrupted by an alarm being sounded in University Hall.
GEORGIA RAU: It’s, it’s like an alarm at University Hall’s door. And if it’s open for a certain amount of time, it just keeps ringing until you close it and no one closes it ‘cause everyone’s like walking out.
As the alarm went off during class, Rau says that it interrupted her professor’s teaching and her own learning.
RAU: The teacher was really annoyed and she was just like, “Oh, it’s a Tuesday alarm,” you know. It really interrupted our learning.
When students view tests of Northwestern’s emergency systems as inconvenient and sometimes avoidable, it makes us ask: how effective is the school at preparing the student body for real emergencies? And for students like Fabio, what can seem like an actual emergency can be misinterpreted thanks to miscommunication between students.
Student safety is one of Northwestern’s top priorities, but there are ways to go until following or acknowledging fire alarms and emergency alerts becomes a priority for students.
For WNUR News, Ella Smith and Dylan Lanier.
