Emergency Preparedness

The other day, we had a fire drill at my school. During the morning meeting, I thought I heard some mention of it, but I wasn't too sure. I figured if it was something important, my supervisor would explain it to me in English. She didn't say anything to me, so I went about my day as usual (drink coffee, stare at the wall, look at the internet, repeat). Then around fourth period, a piercing alarm went off. An announcement was made in Japanese, but all I could catch of it was something either about leaving the windows open or leaving them shut, which didn't really help me much. None of the other teachers in the room said anything to me. They slowly left the room to take care of their classes.

I debated what to do. At this point, it appeared as though everyone else had left the building. I could either sit there or try to evacuate as well. I decided that since I did need to know what to do in the event of an actual emergency it would be best for me to leave the building. Remembering fire drills from my own high school days, I looked out the window to try to find where everyone had collected. I didn't see anyone, but decided I might find them if I went outside and wandered around.

On my way out, while still in the building, I ran into one of the administrators for the school. I stopped him and said "Umm excuse me. I was just sitting in my office and I heard the alarm so I wondered what I should do...?" He looked perplexed and then replied "Oh don't worry about it. You can just remain at your desk."

So apparently, in the even of an actual fire, I am to remain at my desk and burn with the building. It's really comforting to know that they care enough to tell me what to do in the event of an emergency.

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This event reminded me of the one time there actually was a fire when I was a high school student. As required by law, we had fire drills once a month. We knew exactly what to do and where to go if the fire alarm ever went off for real.

One afternoon I was sitting science class. A man knocked on the door, then opened it. "Um, there's a fire in this building so um please leave," he announced to the class. We calmly filed out and joined the other classes from that building on the lawn. With all the alarms and censors installed at the school, when there was an actual fire, our alarm was a teacher walking from classroom to classroom, telling us to leave. No alarm ever went off.

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I guess I have two points that I'm trying to make here. The first is, I am the least important person at my school. I knew this already, but I didn't realize that it was to the extent that they didn't care if I lived or died. The second is, we spend a lot of time and money on emergency preparedness, but in the end it doesn't seem to matter. You had just better hope that if there is a fire, someone knows what's going on and that you're not unlucky enough to find yourslef in Japan at that time.