Ever had to evacuate a room immediately ?

Wren

Wren

Well-known Member
Location
Europe
Have you ever had to evacuate a hotel room or similar due to a fire alarm, or warning of some kind ?

A few years ago, it happened to me in a hotel, about 6.45 am, in bed sound asleep, we jumped up, grabbed what clothes we could and ran, still half asleep, standing outside I said to my friend “I can’t believe I’m standing in the middle, of Liverpool at this time in the morning with no underwear and no make up” (the underwear didn’t bother me but, no make up) :eek::oops:!!!

Thankfully, it was a false alarm and quite hilarious when, later, at breakfast to see all these ladies fully made up, with not a hair out of place, unrecognisable from the people we’d been chatting to earlier ...
 

Wren said:
Have you ever had to evacuate a hotel room or similar due to a fire alarm, or warning of some kind ?
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Oh yes I have! It was Florida (hotel) in the middle of a tornado warning... Lightning did it and they took forever to have it turned off by whatever company they had doing that. Since it was pouring rain and the tornado was on the ground, they didn't want people to leave. It damaged my inner ear and I still have trouble with it after 6 years. I didn't realize how high frequency those hotel alarms are.
 
Didn't have to evacuate, but two of us were in Ankara getting visas at various embassies in 1963.......heard a commotion outside the hotel where we had a room, (maybe on the 5th floor), looked out the window.......ladders up to an adjacent window in the building next door....flames, etc.

Ah, we were leaving anyway.....
 
It was at the grand opening of a hotel here in Orlando. Very, very boozy affair. Most of the attendees were staying at the hotel, including me, my husband and my teenage daughter. The affair was very much still going on at 2 a.m. My husband and I were still downstairs, my daughter was asleep in our room, dead to the world.

Fire alarms went off. Pandemonium. The elevators were, of course, shut off and they weren't allowing anyone to return to their rooms. I'm frantically calling my daughter on a house phone but she was a heavy, heavy sleeper and wasn't responding. My husband finally just bulled by the employees and took the stairs up to the 4th floor to roust our daughter.

Luckily, it was a false alarm, but there was a funny incident. I didn't get to see it, but apparently there were several guys in the outdoor pool doing "naked synchronized swimming" at the time. (I did say the event was very, very boozy, didn't I?)
 
Yes. My next-door neighbour had been smoking in bed, fell asleep and set fire to his bedding. A fireman knocked on my door and told me to get out immediately as the fire was spreading. I grabbed my cat and my handbag and evacuated. My neighbour had been drinking and was lucky that a passer-by saw the smoke and raised the alarm. Most of his bedroom furniture was destroyed but he escaped with just smoke inhalation. My bedroom smelt of smoke for a while but there was no further damage.
 
We lived in Wichita, Ks. for a few years, back in the. early 1960's, and diving into the tornado shelter was an annual event...3 or 4 times a year, Luckily, we never got hit, but one time a small shopping center about 4 blocks away got destroyed, and there was "litter" all over the neighborhood. When the boss asked if I wanted to transfer to Kansas City in 1965, it didn't take me more than a few seconds to say Yes.
 
On the other hand, I was the one who MADE people evacuate in a couple of my jobs. Part of my job as office manager was to be the "fire marshal". We'd have a fire drill and I was the one running around with a big red flag yelling FIRE DRILL! EVERYBODY OUT!!!

Trying to get people to go outside was like herding cats. "It's just a fire drill, right? I don't really have to leave, do I?" "We're in a meeting right now. We CAN'T leave!" "I'M ON A CONFERENCE CALL!"

Yes, you do have to leave. Right now. Yes...you! The fire drill wasn't over until everyone was out in the parking lot and accounted for. It was a requirement. It was company policy. You could get fired for not participating.

At least once a year, I was the most hated person in the office. It's a wonder I don't have a complex.
 
Yes, at work, 3 story office building. Alarm went off, we exited immediately. Fire trucks and police came.
Turns out, someone in the mailroom left his pager (remember those?) on a stack of mail.

Some fool covered it up with a short stack of mail and then heard what sounded like "Ticking", panicked and threw the alarm switch.
 
@jujube:

Ah...you reminded me of a tale I was told 25+ years ago down in Puerto Penasco by a couple from Odessa, TX.

He was on a project in Algeria with a US oil & gas company, (the name of which I can't recall at the moment*), and the senior American management hit on the idea of a fire drill.

The concept was alien to the Algerian workers, so numerous group meetings were held - "You will hear the alarm, immediately proceed to the exits, vacate the building and you can leave".

Big day: Managers all outside with hand held walkie talkies. Bells ring....and ring...and ring. Nada.

In fact vehicles were arriving and people were going INTO the building.

Turns out those already in the building had gone to the change rooms, and those arriving were also going to the change rooms.

Guy who told the story said that he was standing next to a senior manager and said to him, "You expect US to make them work, and you can't even get them to go HOME".

(*El Paso Oil & Gas...or some variation thereof...just came to me.)
 
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Yes, recently. Actually, I didn't HAVE to evacuate but about 10 o'clock pm I noticed red lights, looked out the window and there were no less than 10 emergency vehicles lining the road. No sirens. My neighbor lit her fireplace for the first time this season and there were birds' nests so the whole house filled with smoke as there was fire in the chimney.
I can top the makeup thing. We were all standing outside, I was in my bathrobe talking with neighbors and realized I had tape on my "eleven lines" (damn youtube influencers!) I realized and laughed to my neighbor and she said don't worry it's dark but I know her twenty-year-old son will have a lot of fun with that. :D
 
Never had to evacuate a room/building but when sons were younger, they were out biking and (older of the two) called saying, "Mom, ----'s been hit by a car" Yep, no feet dragging! Daughter grabbed EMT bag (she was in training) and we flew the few blocks to the location.

Son was ok; he had ridden out of a parking lot where bushes blocked the entrance and the little old lady driver didn't see him in time to stop. Fortunately she wasn't going fast. He was in the back of the ambulance being assessed when I arrived. Elderly lady is standing behind the ambulance shaking like a leaf--she probably needed to be checked too, honestly.

My older son told me later, "Mom, you had No Color in your face when you pulled up" and as a fair-skinned redhead, that's saying something!
 
One time on Lake Cumberland in Kentucky where we kept our houseboat I was woken up in the middle of the night by someone pounding on the glass sliding door on the rear of the boat. The marina staff was evacuating everyone because the lake had risen dramatically due to the wet weather and the docks with the boats all in their slips were starting to float away from the marina. Everyone was standing in the parking lot, looking at each other like, where do we go now? They had to set up a "dam" to stop the docks from floating away any further and it took awhile for them to get everything back in place and restore broken electric and water lines. It was a mess.

houseboat.jpg
 
I got a call at work one day from the director of my daughter's day care center. Her first words were, " I want to let you know what REALLY happened."

Apparently an air-conditioning unit had overheated a bit and the power had to cut off to that room as a precaution. No smoke, no alarm, just a circuit break. A firetruck had come for a mandatory inspection as required by law. No siren, perfectly routine.

The kids were all sent to another part of the building while the inspection was being done..

The staff were calling all the parents to give them an accurate account of what happened..

Sure enough, that evening I was treated to a 4-year-old's version of the incident: building on fire, lots of firetrucks and firemen, kids being carried from afore-mentioned burning building by firemen. I'm sure by the end of the day the kids had thoroughly convinced themselves of that scenario.
 
Only a few years ago due to fire. We were not mandatory evacuation but I think warning. It was dark and the glow of the fire could be seen to the east from my front door. Took the cats and stayed the night at my stepfathers. My neighbor behind me said he stayed but didn't sleep much with things packed by the door.
 
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