A Bad Time for a Fire Alarm

During the first week of school, Jewell Hall had quite the mishap. A fire alarm was pulled in the buliding and all 740 residents had to evacuate. The first problem was the stairs. People were all rushing out of their rooms and to the stairs at once, ignoring social distancing guidelines due to fear. The stairs became full and the crowd was slow moving. Many had forgotten to grab a mask when trying to flee and were within inches of each other. Once the students were outside of the building, they were told to gather all in one spot. This is when students started to yell things like, "Covid central." You can see a fraction of the crowd in the video below.

Thankfully, many of the students in the video had masks on. However, there was no such thing as social distancing. Students stops waiting for about 15 minutes in that same spot. They were not told to spread out. Some students even took their masks off. On the way back into the building, instead of returning in small numbers, the entire crowd headed back in at once. A photo of this is shown below.

I understand that the fire alarm was a surprise to each and every one of us, but I feel as if there should have been a better plan. Students should've been distanced in some way. Students should not have entered the building in the same large crowd that caused problems in the staircases. This was a Covid breakout waiting to happen.