school shooting

[mamselle]

I was in Camp Fire, but the basic Scout motto, "Be prepared" seems to cover it all, for me.

But then, my dad was his company's safety director, and we were raised as the pre-view audience for all the safety films he showed his teams on electrocution, fire, first aid basics, etc. 

They never haunted my dreams, but they certainly helped concentrate the mind in an emergency or two.

When the camper in the next cabin over fell off her bunk and broke her arm, the other assistant counselor and I were commended for knowing to stabilize it on a pillow, not move her otherwise, and go get help from the camp director within 10 min.

We were 15 at the time.

M.

[Caracal]

In addition to what others note about drills, they also help detect bottlenecks and other logistical issues - that emergency exit whose alarm didn't go off when it was opened, or that office where it took ages to evacuate because of its layout. But yes, most importantly, people often can't think straight in an actual emergency, so having a well-rehearsed response is helpful. I say this as someone who has had to flee a building under threat of imminent collapse - I've lived through multiple earthquakes.
In the case of earthquakes, you must figure out if you're close enough to the exit to make it out on time, know the nearest open space to head to, and if you're not close enough to evacuate then you must know where to take shelter quickly. You don't want to have to figure this out in the middle of an actual earthquake.
I've never had drills or any kind of active-shooter training, but I did look guidance up myself because it seems a far more realistic threat than a fire in a concrete building.

Two things.
1. The kind of drills you are describing might be useful, but that's because they just involve a rote series of actions. In fire drills, everyone exits the building. In a tornado drill, you go a basement, or an interior hallway. Nobody tries to have drills that account for everything that might happen. We don't have fire drills where you pretend the nearest exit is blocked and you have to go to another one, or that the fire is right outside the room, you can't get out and you have to stuff wet rags under the door or jump out the window. We don't do that kind of stuff because it wouldn't help in the actual situation, and it would just frighten people.

2. Drills are only reassuring and useful if they are part of a larger set of safety measures. If you were in a building that you knew didn't have a working sprinkler system, or you knew that someone usually locked the fire exit doors, would a fire drill make you feel like things were under control?

[mamselle]

Physical enactment of a series of actions is important in stimulating thought about how to carry out those actions and what is required to complete them.

In dance, repetition helps build a repertoire of movements that don't have to be re-learned from the ground up (so to speak) that other movements can then be built upon.

I have never seen how it hurt to take a few moments to learn some of the basic actions, even when variations on them might be necessary.

Also, to the topic of the thread, this event just played out, fortunately without serious results:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWirapiq3QU   

And this one, just yesterday, in Florida:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMwneJ1GRV0

Perhaps there is learning in some primates...

M.

[Puget]

. Nobody tries to have drills that account for everything that might happen. We don't have fire drills where you pretend the nearest exit is blocked and you have to go to another one, or that the fire is right outside the room, you can't get out and you have to stuff wet rags under the door or jump out the window. We don't do that kind of stuff because it wouldn't help in the actual situation, and it would just frighten people.

I don't understand-- why do you think these kind of drills wouldn't help? We actually really should have drills that involve contingency planning. You DO want to know where an alternative exit is, and you SHOULD practice (or at the very least talk about) what to do if fire is right outside the door. Everyone should know, for example, to drop to the floor and crawl if there is smoke (smoke rises). At least when I was a kid, we were taught these things, and I did indeed practice climbing out my (ground floor) bedroom window. You do not want an actual emergency to be the first time you think about or practice these things.

[marshwiggle]

. Nobody tries to have drills that account for everything that might happen. We don't have fire drills where you pretend the nearest exit is blocked and you have to go to another one, or that the fire is right outside the room, you can't get out and you have to stuff wet rags under the door or jump out the window. We don't do that kind of stuff because it wouldn't help in the actual situation, and it would just frighten people.

I don't understand-- why do you think these kind of drills wouldn't help? We actually really should have drills that involve contingency planning. You DO want to know where an alternative exit is, and you SHOULD practice (or at the very least talk about) what to do if fire is right outside the door. Everyone should know, for example, to drop to the floor and crawl if there is smoke (smoke rises). At least when I was a kid, we were taught these things, and I did indeed practice climbing out my (ground floor) bedroom window. You do not want an actual emergency to be the first time you think about or practice these things.

At my institution, we have one (1) campus-wide fire drill each fall. It just checks normal evacuation of each building. It messes up one class or lab period. It would be totally impractical to have more than one to handle different scenarios. (And each classroom or lab has a sign by the door indicating the primary and secondary exit, so that's probably as much information as is necessary.)

[Caracal]

. Nobody tries to have drills that account for everything that might happen. We don't have fire drills where you pretend the nearest exit is blocked and you have to go to another one, or that the fire is right outside the room, you can't get out and you have to stuff wet rags under the door or jump out the window. We don't do that kind of stuff because it wouldn't help in the actual situation, and it would just frighten people.

I don't understand-- why do you think these kind of drills wouldn't help? We actually really should have drills that involve contingency planning. You DO want to know where an alternative exit is, and you SHOULD practice (or at the very least talk about) what to do if fire is right outside the door. Everyone should know, for example, to drop to the floor and crawl if there is smoke (smoke rises). At least when I was a kid, we were taught these things, and I did indeed practice climbing out my (ground floor) bedroom window. You do not want an actual emergency to be the first time you think about or practice these things.

1. As Marshwiggle points out, you can't ignore the tradeoffs, in time, possible injury, damage to property and increased anxiety. I don't really want to practice kicking screens out of my windows. I've never done it before, but I'm just going to assume that if I needed to, I could. There's obviously no safe way to practice jumping out the window

2. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't learn these things, but there's no way to do the kind of practicing that would actually help for people who aren't fire fighters. Crawling in the hallway once a year is probably not going to make any difference. I'm still not really convinced fire/evacuation drills really help individuals (as opposed to testing the systems) that much, but to the extent it is useful, it is because what is being practiced is very simple and doesn't require any adaptation to circumstances.

If there's a fire in a building you mostly want people to not think too much. Don't try to decide if you really need to leave, don't worry about what stuff you need to gather, don't try to figure out if you could just use the elevator, don't worry about the windows, just walk quickly and calmly to the nearest exit sign and walk out. That's really about the limit of the sort of useful training that you can give to non-professionals. You can and should make sure people are aware of basic principles (smoke goes up, stop drop and roll, wet rag under door) but a few simulations aren't going to make any difference in how well people apply these ideas in stressful situations.

3. The drills also only make sense within the context of the larger systems. Leaving quickly via the nearest exit will almost always work in a safe building because the alarm should be triggered when a fire is still localized. Proper barriers and materials should slow spread enough to give everyone time to leave. As long as firearms are easily obtainable by anyone who wants to hurt people, this stuff is all just window dressing.

[ciao_yall]

At our college, our Campus Police Chief had bolts installed so that in case of an active shooter, faculty could lock themselves and students inside the classroom.

Then the Fire Marshall came along and ordered them removed. Because they would prevent exiting in case of a fire.

Not sure who won that war.

[Puget]

Caracel, we're just going to have to disagree on this. No one is talking about practicing things that are unsafe or cause property damage (at least I certainly wasn't), but there is a whole enormous body of research showing that it is precisely the things that aren't simple and automatic that benefit from practice and thinking through in advance, so you are completely backward on that. Nor should it scare reasonable adults to consider contingency plans

At our college, our Campus Police Chief had bolts installed so that in case of an active shooter, faculty could lock themselves and students inside the classroom.

Then the Fire Marshall came along and ordered them removed. Because they would prevent exiting in case of a fire.

Not sure who won that war.

Proper safety locks allow the door to be pushed open from the inside but not pulled open from the outside. We have these on all classroom doors, with a label right on the door with an arrow showing to turn it if there is a shelter in place order.

[marshwiggle]

1. As Marshwiggle points out, you can't ignore the tradeoffs, in time, possible injury, damage to property and increased anxiety. I don't really want to practice kicking screens out of my windows. I've never done it before, but I'm just going to assume that if I needed to, I could. There's obviously no safe way to practice jumping out the window

2. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't learn these things, but there's no way to do the kind of practicing that would actually help for people who aren't fire fighters. Crawling in the hallway once a year is probably not going to make any difference. I'm still not really convinced fire/evacuation drills really help individuals (as opposed to testing the systems) that much, but to the extent it is useful, it is because what is being practiced is very simple and doesn't require any adaptation to circumstances.

If there's a fire in a building you mostly want people to not think too much. Don't try to decide if you really need to leave, don't worry about what stuff you need to gather, don't try to figure out if you could just use the elevator, don't worry about the windows, just walk quickly and calmly to the nearest exit sign and walk out. That's really about the limit of the sort of useful training that you can give to non-professionals. You can and should make sure people are aware of basic principles (smoke goes up, stop drop and roll, wet rag under door) but a few simulations aren't going to make any difference in how well people apply these ideas in stressful situations.

Yes to all this. I give one piece of advice to students at our annual fire drill. TAKE YOUR KEYS! About 30 years ago, we had a bomb scare. The fire alarm was used to get people out of the building; we didn't know it was a bomb scare. They locked the buildings so they could search the campus. I had my keys, but a colleague *didn't, so she came and hung out at our place for a couple of hours until she could get back into the building. (It was mid-afternoon, so the rest of the day's classes, labs, etc. were cancelled.)

I explain that situation, like I just did, so students are prepared in case they're NOT allowed back in soon. (Same thing for putting on your coat if it's winter.)

Only the most basic contingencies are worth even considering, because the possibilities are endless.  (As Caracal pointed out, for the professionals, it's a different story. )


(*Her  house keys were in her office; she was teaching when the alarm went off so she couldn't go get them.)