Second fire drill occurs during third period

A planned fire drill occurred during third period today, Sept. 28, at approximately 9:00 a.m. Students evacuated the building in record time of less than four minutes.

By MCPS regulation, all students must evacuate at least 50 feet from the building. Today, students evacuated much faster than in Blair's average time, six minutes, according to Safety Committee Sponsor Mark Curran. "This is much better than we usually do," he said. Students were in the stadium in six minutes and 40 seconds.

A memo sent out by the MCPS Fire Marshal dictates that Blair is required to have 10 fire drills, two of which must be during the first 30 days of school, and the other eight every 30 days thereafter. MCPS also mandates Blair to have two Code Red and two Code Blue drills each year. The first fire drill, as well as a Code Blue and Code Red drill, occurred during the first day of school for ninth graders.

Curran predicted that 25 percent of homeroom teachers would not turn in the attendance sheets on time, and after submission, 500 students would be marked absent. Excluding students who were present but did not have IDs, Curran predicted that approximately 10 percent of the student body, or 350 kids, was absent.

This year's second fire drill occurred in place of the canceled Sept. 15 fire drill, which instead became a Code Blue and Code Red drill.