Yesterday, Mar 3, at about 2:37 p.m., Briar Woods High School accidentally put their fire evacuation drill to the test. While many students and faculty were confused and assumed it was a surprise fire drill, it quickly became apparent that this was not the case. Students were escorted to their normal evacuation locations, but when fire trucks came onto the scene, the school was sent to their emergency locations in the football stands.
During this time, many guesses were made as to what actually occurred, but no official announcement was made. While fire trucks came to the scene, no smoke was seen arising from the building, and after comparing stories from students, no one had seen a fire. While no one was sure as to what was going on, many students observed the fireman being lifted onto the roof.
“They [the firefighters] went up on the roof and they determined that one of the [HVAC] units had thrown off a belt and, as a result, we were smelling the burning,” explains Officer Mike Cenate, “they turned off power to that particular unit so we wouldn’t have anymore problems, and then they properly ventilated for us to be able to return to the school.”
Finally, at 3:23 p.m., those who had their phones on them were able to read an email sent by administrators stating that the evacuation was triggered by a burning smell in the school. This smell was a result of the HVAC unit, which had been dealing with issues over the weekend. After about an hour outside, students and faculty were sent back to their classrooms and resumed normal schedules for the last 40 minutes of school.
While teachers and students returned to their classrooms, LCPS maintenance was called in to permanently fix the problem.
“The maintenance guys from LCPS came in and, I’m assuming, as long as they had the part to fix that particular unit, [the HVAC unit was fixed] either yesterday late afternoon or this morning,” says Officer Cenate
Now that the problem is fixed, the community of Briar Woods shouldn’t have to worry about any more issues from the HVAC system (hopefully climate control in the school will improve as well). With the main conflict solved, one can look and debrief over their response to the potential emergency.
“I thought everybody did a good job. The most important thing, even though it’s hard, [is] you need to stay calm,” explains Officer Cenate.
It would appear that the great drama has concluded, and there will be no days off as a result. At the very least, Briar Woods was given an opportunity to test out their responses to a “real life” fire evacuation, and despite some small errors, the community of Briar Woods High School did very well exiting quickly, calmly, and efficiently.
Image credit to Ms. Calder
