Fire evacuation drills keep North students safe in case of an emergency. Getting everyone out of the building in a quick and orderly fashion is the administration’s first priority. However, the  excessive evacuations over the past three months have raised concerns about the safety of North’s students.

Students have begun to take Snapchats and talk while slowly walking out of the building. It seems they don’t take the drills seriously anymore. This could end dangerously, and students like senior Claire Spinner are starting to notice.

“Evacuations have become something of a joke among the student body… if there ever was an actual emergency I don’t think we’d actually be prepared,” Spinner said.

In the past three months, five fire alarms have gone off at North. According to the School Safety Drill Act, institutions are required to have at least three planned fire evacuations monitored by the fire department, two of which need to happen before 1 Oct.

According to NNHS Principal Posey, North’s fire alarm equipment was faulty, resulting in two unplanned evacuations of the building within the span of 10 days. This, including one pulled alarm, resulted in students missing class and lunch time. These evacuations did not count towards the two required before 1 Oct. because they were unplanned. Therefore, the school still needed to fulfill the requirement of two planned evacuations.

But through the students’ eyes, the planned drills were just two more disruptions. Having that many evacuations in a short time can ruin the chances of students taking drills, and actual emergencies, seriously.

 Posey stressed the importance of every fire drill.

“We need to take every alarm and every crisis seriously because you never know when it’s the real thing… It’s important to us in the case of a true crisis that we are able to account for everyone’s whereabouts,” Posey said.

Students need to remember they don’t truly know whether an evacuation is a drill or real. Even with numerous technical difficulties, we need to remember that fire safety is something to be taken seriously.