Every so often you may hear that loud, frightening, and annoying alarm that echoes through the Cal State Bakersfield campus; and oftentimes in a short moment or so, you get an alert that it is just a drill.
On April 9, CSUB hosted a practice evacuation drill in order to ensure that the CSUB community knows what to do in an emergency, yet not everyone got to practice as some areas of the campus were dead silent.
According to Martin Williamson, Chief of University Police, it wasn’t expected for everyone to hear the alarm as the fire alarms were not activated.
For emergencies, Williamson explained that there is a multilayered approach to notifying the CSUB community; Building Marshals ,CSUB employee volunteers that are trained once a year that assist during business hours, Visplex System for audio messages, and the CSUB alerts that are sent alerts via texts, phone calls, and emails to subscribers. Furthermore, the fire alarms can be activated in a localized emergency as well as police officers making announcements on loudspeakers.
Ash Griggs, sophomore studying communications, was a student that had class in the new Media Arts Center, and as other parts of the campus were evacuating during the drill, his class was continuing on like nothing was going on outside.
“If it is supposed to be an evacuation drill, then there should probably be someone here to check on everybody. I feel like it should be more than a text… it said that it was spam and I thought it was a random call.”, said Griggs
As the Media Arts Center has recently been remodeled, they need to install a Visplex speaker, an internal and external speaker that relays audio messages, as well as assign a Building Marshall, two things that Williamson said should be in the building.
Griggs feels like as this being a drill a lot of people would have ignored the situation if this was an actual emergency as there were no alarms, or people physically letting them know that it is a real emergency, like other locations on campus.
Audrey Armstrong, development support assistant for university advancement and Building Marshall for area 2, explained that she is proud of her group in university advancement.
“I think that it is very important that we know exactly what to do during cases of emergency, we never know when they arise.”, said Armstrong.
Armstrong said that she believes all staff, students and faculty should participate in these drills to know what to do in an emergency.
Yet, that is not how everyone in the CSUB community feels as they express their frustrations towards disrupting valuable class time.
“I don’t think they are effective so much, I think that we have been doing these types of drills. I think they can be really disruptive to class plans and class times.” said Katy Hanson, lecturer for religious, interdisciplinary, and philosophy studies.
Hanson further said that people have practiced evacuation drills since elementary school, herself included, that at this point they should know what to do.
Freshman, Simira Stanley, psychology major and child and adolescent minor, expressed that she was working on a presentation for her sexual ethics class, and feels like the drill is pointless.
“Now we’re out here standing outside, not learning, not getting our money’s worth. It’s kinda a waste of time, but I get why we’re doing it that way so we know how to evacuate.” said Simira.
Williamson expressed how he understands the feelings that some of the campus has towards these drills yet, hopes that the campus understands that there is a need to be prepared and results show that those who practice and come prepared have a better reaction to a true emergency.
