Old school fire drill

[Daniel]

Here is the fire alarm in our school, an ancient Edwards system, as I conduct the monthly fire drill. When I was a kid, most schools had alarms like these. It's good to be the king (or acting principal)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiGp_nzr5y8

[landmobile]

My school had a system of grey gongs about 8 or 10 inches in diameter that were activated by red rectangular pull stations. Each pull station had a 3 digit number, such as 2-3-1, which was tapped out by the gongs.

Over the years the system was upgraded to add smoke detectors, horn strobes and central station monitoring. To the best of my memory the original system (c 1968) was made by Simplex.

[Oldiesmann]

My elementary school had large black bells that did the standard code 3. They were activated by pushing a button in a box that was hooked up to each bell (the button set off all of them, not just one).

[bradhig]

my elementary school had IBM alarm boxes. The boxes had a glass bar below the lever which I believe had ink in it for marking whoever pulled it.

My high school had alarm boxes in enclosed boxes. You had to open the door to get to the lever.

[kagome122885]

I had a nasty experience with these type of alarm when i was a kid. Back in September of 1993 when I was in first grade, I was attending Edgewood elementary in Fruitport, MI shortly before moving to Grand Haven. When I heard these alarms (simplex 4040 or 4050 and faraday type 2), I plugged my ears when we went into the hall to get outside. in 2006 I attended Michigan Career and Technical Institute's custodial program. They had Standard 4-350(vibratone 350) horns. When I first heard then on March 2,2006 at 8:00 PM i immediately knew what it was and ran to the nearest exit, not closing the door or grabbing my keys to the dorm. On April 10 at 9:15. I was sweeping the hall by the custodial classroom and was about 10 feet from one of the horns when they sounded for a fire drill. I said "holy ****!" and ran to the exit nearby. These things still scare me today.

[Lurrch]

Ah yes.....the memories. Definately remember the buzzing. I was terrified of fire drills at least all through grade school, but by the time was in high school, it wasn't too big of a deal.

[MKIIProductions]

I can remember the Fire alarm system we had at our school when i was there for Kdg... The Numbered Pull idea i thought was pretty accurate, But all you had to have was a Map of where number 2-5-3 was or Number 2-1-4 was. Every time the alarms would go off, the same pull, 1...2.....1...2...3...1..2..3..4..5..6...
It still goes through my head, Every time we have a "New Age" Drill here at school..(TrueAlerts sounding Code 3)
Thems were the days.