One reason that fire drills and other training scenarios might seem too ridiculously easy to be beneficial is that you have grown up in a world in which of course exits are clearly marked and of course everyone knows to evacuate the building when a fire alarm goes off, even if they don’t see fire.
But part of the reason we have these drills is because back in the day, before they were done, you’d get people who would be told to remain at their workstation on the assumption that where there’s no smoke, there’s no fire. Meanwhile, fire is engulfing the building below them and smoke is filling the stairwells, so that by the time someone sees smoke seeping onto the workflow through the stairwell doors and supervisors grudgingly allow people to leave their workstation (while having their pay docked for doing so), it’s too late to safely evacuate and everyone ends up burning or jumping or jumping while burning to their death onto the street below.
The idea of drills isn’t to simulate the actual panic of a fire, it’s to accustom people to getting out of the building before there is even cause to panic. Because if you wait until people have cause to panic, it may well be too late to save anyone no matter how calm they might remain. The problem on Titanic, for example (yes, yes, other than hitting the ice berg and not having enough lifeboats), wasn’t that people panicked, it was that even the ship’s officers didn’t know what the hell they were doing, to the point that they infamously launched many/most of their lifeboats with seats still open. Had they been better drilled in when and how to fill and lower lifeboats, more people would have lived. Ditto if passengers had been drilled even once on when and how to make their way from deep inside the ship to abandon ship stations (and had crew been better trained in when and how to ensure all passengers were alerted promptly to the need).
When the big Fukushima disaster happened, my kids were in daycare. My daughter was 2 1/2 and my son was a baby.
After we all got back that night, my daughter excitedly told me that they had the “earthquake drill” that day, but this time the building was shaking! They did what they had drilled for, which is huddle under tables with hands over their heads.
Apparently, they had monthly drills, so the staff and kids were really familar with what to do. Fortunately, the building wasn’t damaged, but had the earthquake been closer to Tokyo, things could have been worse. I can’t see how not knowing what to do would have been an advantage.
We had a fire alarm go off during our chemistry final and the TAs told us to remain in the room until it was verified.
When I was in college my girlfriend lived on the 18th floor of a high-rise dormitory.
One night while I was staying over a fire alarm went off. So we had to troop down 18 flights of stairs. With every flight, we were joined by more and more women. I was the only guy amongst them all.
So that fire alarm was effective in that I got to see about 500 young women in various states of undress.
I always wonder if my workplaces are representative. I’m not going to say that fire drills weren’t effective but I think the fact that everyone had at least one day’s advance notice made them less effective.Because with the “knowledge” that it wasn’t a real fire , people went to get their coats and bags and use the restroom before exiting the building. I even remember one person dragging a chair outside because they didn’t want to stand until we were allowed back in the building. For the most part, people do what they practice and my coworkers sure did - because everyone was going for their belongings and people went to the restroom even when the alarm went off and it wasn’t a drill.
And part of the reason for for drills is that they regularly give you notice if someone has been using the emergency exits as extra closet space, and made them impossible to use. They effectively make people leave those exits passable.
I think there’s another aspect here. A fire drill isn’t just a practice session for your emergency plan. It’s also a test to see if your emergency plan works.
Let’s say your emergency plan is for everyone to leave the building by the closest exit. And then the first time you conduct a drill, you find that with everyone leaving by different exits and going to different areas, you have no way of conducting a headcount and verifying that everyone is out of the building.
So you change the emergency plan and say that now everyone leaves the building by the closest exit but then everyone walks to the parking lot and gathers there. Your next drill lets you confirm that you can now count the number of people who are outside and verify it’s everyone.
It’s not so much that, as the allowance of bad fire drill behavior. It’s actually better to let people know there will be a drill, if they are expected to do it right. I’d have a person walking around the floor saying “we’re having a drill in 15 minutes” so that the drill goes quickly and smoothly.
People are using the restroom and dragging out chairs because the drill is NOT quick or smooth.
There’s value in knowing where everyone is.
How many of you have this kind of arrangement at home?
I remember as a kid in school in the 70s that they were recommending home fire drills even back then.
When I had kids of my own, we never went to the extent of having a home fire drill, but I made a point of telling everyone where to meet outside in the event of a fire. We live on a corner, so it was easy: meet on the street corner.
Whenever random kids were spending the night for a sleepover I always told them our “gathering place” in case of fire. They probably thought I was either very weird or cool for letting them know.
As a practical example, when the world trade center was hit by airplanes, nearly everyone below the plane strikes was able to walk to safety. I know two exceptions. One was an actuary who was his “floor warden” who stayed behind to check all the restrooms and stuff. The other was an insurance sales woman who got to the first floor, but stayed there to help a wounded person. Those two were still in the building when it collapsed, and died. But almost everyone who had physical access to escape did so, suggesting the training worked.
(I didn’t work there, but if they had “floor wardens” with a role in evacuations, I’m pretty sure they had drills.)
I worked on the 68th floor of an office building and it was slightly farcical watching people scheduling conveniently-timed early lunch breaks or meetings on the 2nd floor on fire drill day (rather than trudge down all those flights of stairs).
I disagree - I know these people and to the extent the drills weren’t quick or smooth it was because of people going to get their belongings and use the restroom because the drill can’t end until everyone is outside and accounted for. That person who dragged out the chair wasn’t willing to stand up for ten or fifteen minutes, it’s not like the drill took 30 minutes or an hour.
And that’s something I actually used to tell people - that when they went to get bags and use the restrooms not only would they be delayed in getting out, it would also delay the wardens and searchers from getting out.
I’m sure their manager did - I know I did ( I was a manager but not their manager). But I didn’t know about it until I got outside and saw it and their manager may also not have known until after the fact.
Speaking as someone with knee trouble, who sometimes finds it very uncomfortable to stand for 15 minutes… There’s usually something you can lean against (a car, a street pole) and if not, you can walk around your group of coworkers so as not to have to just stand there.
I’d say anecdotally that they’re pretty effective. We had them regularly at my previous employer, and one time it wasn’t a drill- there was an actual fire (a small one in a bathroom somewhere). But we all trudged downstairs and met up in the restaurant parking lot nearby like we’d been trained.
I will say that it did kind of teach the wrong lesson. In the fire drills, most people would leave stuff like coats, hats, etc.. because we were never outside very long, and they were cranky about timing. But in the actual fire, it happened in the winter, and we had to stand around for an extended period, so those who didn’t grab their coats were cold, and the next time, they rounded up all their gear and took longer.
In my experience, people are so constantly warned not to open the fire doors, because it sets the alarms off, that they won’t use them when the alarm goes off, they insist on going out the regular doors.
That’s something I was thinking. I’ve heard that most people will instinctively exit a place the same way they entered, unless instructed to do otherwise (that’s why on airplanes we’re always reminded that the nearest exit may be behind us). And I’ve noticed that during fire drills everyone just goes to the main entrance/exit, rather than going to the nearest fire exit. It seems like it would be a good idea to actually get people used to using the fire exits during fire drills, so it will just be ingrained if there is an actual emergency.