Fire alarms wake students

This archived article was written by: Travis Hill

Travis Hill
staff writer
[email protected]
Students who are awakened in the middle of the night to the sounds of a fire alarm and forced to vacate their dorms are getting sick of this seemingly continuous chore. And it seems like it’s for no reason at all. The lack of sleep and frigid cold is causing a commotion amongst students.
This year it seems that the Aaron Jones residence hall has been plagued by fire alarms. This has Housing and Residence Life Director Jeff Spears worried. “Our concern is that with all these pulls and false alarms it’ll be just like the boy who cried wolf.” There has been much speculation on the alarms mainly through social media, primarily YikYak.
However Spears shed light on the issue. “A lot of it’s the laundry room, it’ll get too hot. So what we’re looking to do is to put in ventilation and also have them [the laundry rooms] serviced. We are also looking into inserting cameras. It would be nice to do that not just for fire alarms, but for theft and other issues.”
The majority of the time it has been the heat from the laundry rooms that are the cause. It has also been speculated by staff that the fire alarms aren’t being pulled, but tampered with in other ways.
A lot of students are concerned and wondering what is being done about this inconvenience. Spears said, “I think that cameras are the next route that we’ll go. Not only for fire purposes but like I said, theft and other issues.”
Spears is trying to put students at ease and let everyone know that the school is taking care of the problem. “We might post signs saying don’t overfill the washer, make sure you clean out the lint trap, that type of stuff.”
According to Spears, cameras are the plan; “I would say probably the next few weeks we’ll have them [cameras] installed.”
On a more serious note Spears has a message for all students, “Something else that should probably be put out there is the ramifications of pulling the alarms. If you are caught, obviously you will be expelled from the residence halls without a doubt. You are also looking for more charges because really what happens is, let’s say you pull a fire alarm or you tamper with equipment the fire department comes here on campus. Let’s say there is a real fire downtown. You will be held responsible for that as well.
“I think it is a $1000 fine for tampering. That’s something I want to get out to the students.”