T.C.’s administration has announced new emergency preparedness plans. The new plans supersede current emergency preparedness plans at the school.
Emily Townsend
The current plan involves students exiting their classroom in an orderly fashion and proceeding to the nearest stairwell if they are on the second or third floor. Once they are downstairs, students and staff exit from the doors at the bottom of the stairwell. Depending on where the students exit the building, they either line up on the football field or gather near the Chinquapin Recreation Center.
“If we are just walking down the stairs in a real fire, the building would burn down before we all make it out,” said senior Pookie Scarborrow.
The new fire evacuation plan will include the addition of escape slides out of third story windows. Second story windows will have bouncy houses underneath them as the distance has been deemed safe enough to jump. These implementations will hopefully relieve some congestion in stairwells and allow for a fast and easy evacuation. Under teacher discretion, students may receive extra credit for front or back flips in their dismount to bouncy houses.
“Using windows instead of the staircase will hopefully clear up mass congestion in the stairwell,” said an administrator who asked to remain anonymous. The slides will be different neon colors including green, blue, and pink. They will take around 5 seconds to slide down depending on the floor you come from and if your slide has a loopty-loop.
“The idea seems very safe, it’s almost like an airplane evacuation!”said sophomore Kevin Dols.
One concern administration has about the addition of slides is students pulling fire alarms on purpose. “We already have problems with students pulling alarms” said an academy administrator, “This may make [students] want more fire drills because it becomes a more fun way to evacuate class.”
The administration also will implement other experimental emergency procedures. In case of a tornado or earthquake, seat belts will be installed on all chairs in classrooms allowing students to safely strap into their chairs during the event of an earthquake. Flotation devices will be attached to the bottom of chairs in case of mass flooding. This will allow students to feel safe if the bathroom floods when students repeatedly break water faucets.
However, these flotation devices are not meant for play. Rules will be set: flotation devices will not be used for hitting each other or any form of violence and students should also refrain from using flotation devices like surfboards or other similar sporting objects.
“The guidelines set will make these devices a safe and effective way to combat mass flooding,” said an assistant principal.
Minnie Howard teachers and students are outraged as no new additions have been added to their fire evacuation. However, some students suggest that a water slide should be added to the hill leading down to the soccer field which can also be used by firefighters for extra water to put out any real fires.
“The school hopes to continue to find new out of the box solutions for school issues” said an administrator who added “we hope to next fix overcrowding on busses”.
