Cain Petty
Reporter
Jones Hall has been a quiet place, providing a home for the students that reside within. There is rarely a disturbance – with the exception of the fire alarms.
Jones’ residents have been experiencing an increase in fire alarms going off, resulting in a rush of students outside at varying times of day. The causes have ranged from drills, false alarms and simple maintenance, but all causing annoyance to students and RAs on multiple occasions.
One such occasion happened at 6 a.m., right before residents started to wake up. Residents recall either having to wake up earlier than expected or being disturbed from sleep after a long night of studying.
One such resident, Katelyn Klark, a fifth-floor freshman, recalls the morning it happened.
“I will say that I lost a lot of sleep,” said Klark. “One day before I had a huge Chemistry quiz in the morning, and we were out there for a very long time.”
She continues, discussing what she thinks needs to be done about the fire alarms.
“Maybe because they go off so easily because they are so sensitive. We need maintenance to like work on that. People don’t want to keep going outside and are going to start to not take it seriously.”
One anonymous RA shares this same sentiment. They have concerns about how residents and emergency responders will respond to the fire alarms.
“I feel like emergency responders are less likely to come timely to Jones when it goes off as much as it does because they think it’s just ‘A Boy who Cried Wolf’ situation.
“And residents who are just like ‘Oh, it’s just a shower’ and then they don’t leave their room. They could potentially, if a fire actually did happen, they could get hurt or worse,” the RA says.
With the increased fire alarms, RAs share the same complaints of interrupted sleep as their residents. The RA remarks how their job and the fire alarms going off has affected how they manage their sleep, noting the same 6 a.m. incident Klark touched on.
“So, you’re losing a couple hours of sleep. And then you have to go to class and survive on a couple hours less sleep, especially if you are pulling an all-nighter or stayed up really late the night before working the desk until 1 a.m., and then you’re woken up at 6 a.m., that’s very few hours of sleep.”
The RA discusses how the recent fire watch that Jones was under had affected their work as an RA, citing incidents of working entire nights instead of the usual four-hour shifts.
“So definitely working like double time, like there were a couple of weeks where I booked in over 20 hours and still as a full-time student, and I know I would have to have like classes the very next morning, and I would have just gotten off of my part time job on campus.”
However, Andrew Moneymaker, Director of the Office of Housing and Residence Life, tells residents that he understands the frustration, but he still urges residents to follow procedure.
“I think the biggest issue that could arise is students will get frustrated with them. And that’s very understandable, but the problem with that is they still have to evacuate because you never know if it’s going to be a false alarm.
“And I don’t want to be the person that has to call a family member and say something happened to them because they didn’t leave or even if I didn’t have to make the call, somebody from the university would, and that’s not a phone call that anybody would really want to make, because they decided to stay,” Moneymaker says.
Renovations are scheduled soon for Jones, potentially addressing some complaints.
Moneymaker says the renovations will address a number of issues.
“Upgrading the fire system, the plumbing, wiring in the building, all of that is going to be part of the renovation project. Upgrading the system is always nice. Bear with us, evacuate when it goes off.”