Residents tired of alarms

The ninth and 10th fire alarms of the semester at Read Center Sunday morning have led one student to send a letter about the plight of residents to the IU administration.\nAlthough the two alarms were due to actual smoke unlike six previous Read alarms, senior William Harvey sent an e-mail demanding action on the matter to IU President Adam Herbert and IU-Bloomington Chancellor Sharon Brehm, among others. The e-mail circulated to Read residents, who were encouraged to send e-mails to the administration.\n"I feel it is incumbent to make sure people in a position to do something about this realize it is a serious problem," Harvey said. "The University is responsible for providing students with a safe dorm, but it seems the administration doesn't care about student safety, student welfare or student academic performance. The fire alarms have been affecting all three of those."\nIn the case of the first alarm, which went off at approximately 3:05 a.m. Sunday, a microwave reportedly "blew up," Residence Manager Doug Yeskie said.\nThe second alarm was set off at approximately 7:50 a.m. by a student who had burned food in the Read-Curry fourth floor kitchenette.\nThe first evacuation lasted more than 90 minutes, while the second only lasted about 20 minutes.\nThe length of the evacuations was decided by three graduate assistants on site, Yeskie said. He also said that while an e-mail warned last month that every single room in the building would be checked for remaining students, both evacuations were only spot checks.\nNo students were found in the building during either spot check.\n"We haven't found anybody in the building yet," Yeskie said. "Residents seem to be taking the alarms seriously and evacuating. That's great."\nResidents, however, do not see this many alarms as "great." Some have gone to extraordinary lengths to lessen the impact of alarms and are even planning to move out.\n"Last year I put plasticine over the alarm because it was so loud it was almost deafening," sophomore Sassan Yaghmai said. "I didn't do that this year because I thought they'd be organized, but the people in Read, they're just crazy. It's mostly freshman. They're not organized. They're not careful."\nYaghmai said he will talk to the Residence Halls Association about a move to Willkie Quad.\nHarvey also said he is concerned that students are taking the alarms less seriously.\n"People hear the alarms, and get out of bed slowly. They put their shoes and jackets on slowly." Harvey said. "If it were a real alarm they wouldn't do that. In case of a real fire, it could cause a very serious problem."\nYeskie reminds students that unlike most alarms this semester, at least Sunday's alarms were not false pulls.\n"These two were legitimate," Yeskie said. "That's not a great thing, but at least they weren't pulls. I get calls from parents thinking that every one is a pull, but so far four have been legitimate."\nHarvey points out that regardless of whether the alarms are legitimate, they can still have the same effect on students.\n"This time it happened on the weekend, but this can also happen the night before a big performance or a big exam," Harvey said. "It can be very detrimental the next day. For the University to not care about that, I find very upsetting."\n-- Contact staff writer Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.