Fire Alarm at ISAT
On Tuesday, February 27, 2001, as I was heading back from the Festival, one of JMU’s dining attractions, I noticed some white flashing lights over at the ISAT Building. I also noticed a number of people congregated around the exits. This of course could only mean that the fire alarm had again gone off over at ISAT. So I raced up to my room in Potomac Hall and grabbed the Mavica and headed over to ISAT. Turned out that some moron had called in a bomb threat, and people were waiting for the JMU Police to finish checking the building so that they could get their stuff that they had left in the building. Leaving your stuff when the fire alarm goes off in college is very much a “rookie mistake”. Over at Zane Showker Hall, where bomb threats are unfortunately more commonplace (and where one was called in at noon earlier that day), we have actually been told by the powers that be in the College of Business to take our stuff with us. Still, with the lights flashing at ISAT, I figured I might as well use the multi technique on the camera to avenge my misfortune from the time the fire alarm went off at 4 AM last semester, and I was unable to catch a good strobe picture.
Flashing lights… people milling about outside… either a photography convention… or the fire alarm’s going off!
Unlike the first time I encountered a fire alarm at ISAT, this time I nailed a strobe flash on the first try. SCORE! The amount of light emitted by modern strobes is absolutely amazing. Here’s a look at the strobe at the height of its flash, without the animation…
Now when the fire alarms are sounding in ISAT, the doors are automatically locked. Now for a bomb threat, the police also manually lock the doors. However, they overlooked this door, and so when they turned off the fire alarm, a professor, thinking it was over and an all-clear had been given, went back in. He was kindly escorted back outside by JMU Police, since they were nowhere near being ready to reopen the building. This door was also locked manually after this.
In the meantime, students were waiting around hoping to get back inside to continue class or retrieve possessions from inside. Some just hung around (above), and others waited around more actively, as can be seen by this person skateboarding (below).
Some people eventually gave up on waiting for the building to reopen, and flew the coop.
Besides the JMU Police and the Cadets, some of the parking attendants were also called to man the entrances of ISAT.
And around the building, except for police presence, all was quiet.
No students were around, as the building had been evacuated.
Note: This picture, and any other pictures that look like they were taken from inside the building, were cleverly taken through windows and doors, making use of the Mavica’s zoom feature.
Unlike last time, when I went out and took pictures at four in the morning, this time it was actually a normal hour, as evidenced by the clock hanging from the ceiling.
Out in front, where the tower stands tall (does anyone actually know what that thing on the front of the building is supposed to look like?), all is quiet, except for a professor, a student, and a parking attendant, waiting for the building to reopen.
No activity was noticeable in the building at all. No students getting a snack at the vending machines, and no students in the classrooms, either.
Then the announcement came. The ISAT Building was closed for the rest of the night. The student in the picture above, who had inadvertently left her belongings inside the building, is illustrating many of others’ sentiments who did similarly. The general feeling was, “WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?!?!” Some students had early classes in the morning, and thus couldn’t wait around in the morning for ISAT to open up but then also needed their stuff for their early classes.
With no end in sight in the next few minutes, I gracefully departed.
