Mondays are tough. For the residents of West Wing, Hall, and Hill House, Monday, April 3, started earlier than expected when an abrupt fire alarm went off around 6:00 a.m. The alarm, which originated in West Wing, forced students and advisers to evacuate and leave the dorm for an hour. Because of the electrical wiring that runs through the three dorms, Hall and Hill House were affected by the alarm in addition to West Wing, where it originated.
A malfunctioning light in a West Wing hallway set off the alarm. However, it took Community Safety officers an extended amount of time to find the source of the problem, partly due to the interconnectedness of the dorms’ electrical systems. West Wing’s head adviser Ms. Kolina Koleva explained, “First, the fire department went in and inspected everything to find out where it was coming from. It took them a bit of time, and once they found that it was from that light, they called the electrician. He came, and essentially replaced everything.”
Students in the three affected dorms, half asleep and still in their pajamas, were then told to wait in the lobby of the Library as Community Safety looked for the cause of the alarm. The process took about an hour. Ms. Koleva said, “Basically, they had to go through the whole dorm and check all of the rooms. They checked my apartment and Ms. [Judi] Williams’s apartment to see where the problem was coming from.” Community Safety and the fire department, as well as Choate’s facility management team, worked to find the source of the problem and shut off the alarm.
Alyssa Shin ’18, a Hall resident, explained, “It was definitely an interesting start to the morning. At first, I thought it was a drill, but I realized soon enough that it wasn’t. I think it was frustrating for a lot of people because it was a school morning and because of how long it took to find what triggered the fire alarm. It was cold out, and all of us went into the lobby of the library and waited for forty to fifty minutes.”
Although not all students were affected by the faulty alarm, there was still a wave of concern throughout the student body. “If a fire alarm went off in my dorm, I would follow all safety procedures. However, it would be very annoying and probably not the best start to my day,” Skylar Hansen-Raj ’20 said. She continued, “I think this event should set a precedence for future fire alarm checks, and Community Safety should learn from this.”
“Residents of the dorms must have been quite unhappy and tired. I would hope that this does not happen again,” said Gigi Sherbacow ’20, who resides in Nichols but heard the complaints of students in the affected dorms. “Personally, I would’ve thought it was my alarm if it was that early. I honestly would’ve cried.”
Jamie Shin ’20 said, “If it were a drill, I would be annoyed due to the fact that it woke me up. If it weren’t a drill, I would be scared for my life.”
For West Wing, Hall, and Hill residents, the experience was proven to be surprising. Because of routine checks on dorms and their respective electrical systems, incidents born of faulty wiring have rarely occurred. Ms. Koleva explained, “Usually it’s kids burning popcorn in the microwave, not putting water in their electric kettles, or a hairdryer – things like that usually set off alarms.”
The dorms are expected to continue with maintenance checks as usual, as it has proven effective in the past. Ms. Koleva said, “We do inspect rooms to make sure that they are within the code and that they don’t have things that they shouldn’t have. Other than that, I think the School does maintenance on a regular basis. That is why this was surprising.”
