scared fire alarms at your school

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When you were in elementary school did you get scared of firedrills? Did you have a loud fire alarm in your school. I used to get very scared of them, especially knowing they could go off anytime.

I would cover my ear with my earlobe as it was really loud at my elementary school. I remember that they generally held fire drills around a morning snack time and I can recall holding my ears a few times expecting that there might be a fire drill. The teacher sometimes had some newsletters on the table at our reading group that said "Fire drill today at 10", and I had learned how to read upside down. She said that the whole point was that a fire drill should be a surprise and because I could read it upside down, she asked the office to switch to a cursive font for the newsletters which I wasn't able to read upside down. Around that time period I didn't fear it as much.

Actually I kind of enjoyed them. I guess the sound was a bit unpleasant. But once outside it was all OK though.

Some of the schools I went to had a typical loud fire alarm (gong sound). Others had no fire alarm at all, so they just sounded the regular school bell, continuous.

[moved from news and current events to random discussion]

not so much scariness really, an initial jolt when it happened suddenly and then, my day became a little more exiting.

Not really. I didn't like them but I tolerated them OK. I liked missing class thou.

Last edited by nick007 on 24 May 2015, 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't remember hating them. I liked going outside.

My son (rising 3rd grader) flips out and screams and/or cries every time. It takes him a while to calm down afterwards every time.

We were once at a restaurant and one went off. Everyone stayed seating, I guess assumed that it was falsely triggered (it was), my son and I went outside (my daughter stayed behind with her father). My son just flipped out outside fearing that everyone was going to die. And incredibly upset that no one else was "following the rules" of fire safety.

(For him, I think it's more about the anxiety related to a fire than the actual sound, though I'm sure that plays a part.)

Fire drills were a good excuse to not do classes, but on the other hand they were almost as boring as doing academics, because they made us stand there in lines for half an hour and do nothing.

I remember one time, there was one of the stupid things while I was in my math class. So he lines the class up, we go outside to the field. And we're walking through the place where everyone takes their dogs, right?? The teacher is walking backward, not looking where he's going, and then he steps right in a huge dog turd. Oh man, my sides... This teacher was one that I particularly disliked, too.

They don't scare me, but they do startle me enough to cover my ears. The sound becomes more tolerable as I go outside.

No, the fire alarm didn't bother me at all. Loud? *shrug* like most fire alarms, I guess...

I didn't like leaving my clothes (jacket, and in winter mittens or gloves, scarf, tuque) though. We were told to get out and not bring anything. It took all my strength to do that.

I always thought it was a little silly to rehearse walking out in an orderly line, because I couldn't imagine we'd really do so if there really was a fire close to us.

Me too

I was scared of the fire alarm in elementary school.

They never really bothered me. In fact I kind of liked them because they gave us kids an excuse to go outside instead of doing schoolwork. Sometimes the teacher would let us have a second recess before calling us all back in.

Now those "duck and cover alarms" I heard they used to have back in the 50's-60's, they sound really scary. Especially since we now know about nuclear fallout and that would not do jack squat to save us.

We had a tornado alarm that was scary. I also liked missing class at every chance I could.

Yep I used to cover me ears before the Fire alarm goes off a lot in Elementery school and bit into Middle school (sensory issue) but now I don't cover my ears and those things just startle me (my English teacher actually cussed while the fire alarm was going off lol)