Carleton’s safety director called the response of his officers to students stuck on a residence floor during a fire alarm Sept. 5 “exceptionally good.”
“Normal evacuation for a building of that size, safe evacuation is eight to 10 minutes,” Allan Burns said. “We were on the floor, talking to the students the best we could within six minutes and we had the doors unlocked in 11 minutes. That’s a pretty remarkable response to that situation.”
About 18 students were trapped on the eighth floor of the Lennox and Addington building just before 1 a.m. on Sept. 5 when their emergency exit doors failed to unlock during a false fire alarm.
The students and the Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) are now asking for an apology from university safety for a communication failure, as they were not told the alarm was false while they were stuck on the floor.
Joel Tallerico, RRRA vice-president (administration) and an eighth-floor resident who was stuck during the alarm and, said he called university safety twice: once right after he noticed the doors were locked, and again when he noticed safety officers trying to get in.
Burns said he knew that at the time of one of the calls from a student on the floor, their “dispatcher was on the phone with the ambulance at that particular time and couldn’t break away from the conversation with the ambulance.”
An ambulance was called because a student suffered a seizure on the ground outside, according to Burns.
“Our dispatcher, who is a person who is multitasking, doing many many things, is trying to answer as many calls as possible,” Burns said. “Certainly if the students had called at a time when our dispatcher was able to provide that information, I would have expected it to happen. If that didn’t happen, we’re now looking into that as well.”
During the false alarm, the electromagnetic locks on the eighth floor’s exits were supposed to automatically unlock during a fire alarm, but locked instead.
“From time to time, things that are mechanical are going to fail,” Burns said. “We can never be certain that another electromagnetic lock somewhere else on campus will not fail, that can happen anywhere in any building, in an apartment building, any federal government building, any building that has electromagnetic lock.”
Burns said safety officers knew it was a false alarm “a minute before they reached the eighth floor,” but officers still tried to kick down the locked doors. When they failed to do so, the doors were opened manually.
Burns said the locks were fixed at noon later that day, and tested multiple times to make sure they worked properly.
“What I think we really learned from this is that we need to communicate with the residents of the buildings how to handle evacuation situations and what to do if their evacuation route is blocked,” Burns said.
University safety and the housing department held a fire evacuation meeting on Sept. 12 for students in the Lennox and Addington building.
Fire prevention officer Rick Percival hosted the meeting. He discussed safety measures used on campus and what students should do when an alarm goes off.
He said the goal of the meeting was to explain to students “what their options are in emergencies, and what’s reasonable to do in those situations.”
At the meeting, Percival said if students cannot leave the building during an evacuation, they should get to a safe place like their dorm rooms or lounge, and call university safety. They should also put clothes or towels at the bottom of their doors to block smoke.
Some students trapped on the floor during the incident said they were unhappy with how the university communicated with them.
“I don’t believe there’s anything to apologize for. I think our response time was well within safe manners and our ability to communicate was the best we could at the time,” Burns said.
The university will be reviewing its communication procedures during evacuations, said health and safety officer David Hunt, who was at the meeting.
“We want that process to be as smooth as possible,” he said.
According to Burns, a Carleton student has been charged by police for triggering the false fire alarm.
