I realized just how important fire drills are on Thursday.

At around 2:00 p.m. today, the fire alarms went off all around the school. I was in band, rehearsing with the orchestra for the winter concert. In the midst of an annoyingly sharp-ridden rendition of Jingle Bells, the shrill scream of the fire alarm broke through the sound of cellos, violins, and woodwinds.

It was a little disconcerting, to say in the least, especially because hardly anybody knew what was going on. I did what I was told, leaving my clarinet on my chair and following the rest of my band out the back doors onto the grassy knoll by the parking lot. It was absolutely frigid out, and my car was parked very close to where we were standing so a couple of friends and I sought warmth inside.

At this point, I still thought it was a drill–until I saw the fire trucks pulling into the narrow school driveway. I still don’t know if there was an actual fire or not; people have conflicting stories–”the auditorium is flooded”, “I swear I smell smoke”, “they’ll have to cancel school for the rest of the day” making it difficult to discover the truth.  

When we were finally allowed to go inside, it was chaotic on the fine arts side of the school. I was told to go to three different locations via several different routes so I had no idea where to go or how to get there. I eventually wound up in the rotunda, where I saw that all of my peers were just as confused as I was. Frustrating as it was in the moment, distance from the encounter made me realize that there really was no one to blame.

It got me thinking about fire drills. It seems so methodical: the fire alarms ring, you go outside, you stay with your class so your teacher can take a headcount, you go back inside when the alarms stop ringing. There’s no confusion or chaos at all, but the real deal can often be different as there’s no way to know when and where something will happen. You can do all the drills in the world and someone would still probably go off script when the pedal hits the metal.

Thursday’s evacuation is a real reminder of the importance of paying attention to and retaining the information from drills. As teenagers, we often lack the foresight to comprehend the necessity of something we’d normally consider an inconvenience, but these drills are necessary. I know you can never really be prepared for a situation as stressful as a fire drill, but it would definitely alleviate some of the stress if we all did our part to make sure the process runs as smoothly as possible.