Instead of the customary loud warning from the fire alarms, students were surprised at 10 a.m. Monday morning, April 4, to hear principal Scott Lawrence’s voice on the intercom announcing an emergency and the need to evacuate immediately to the football field. "This is not a drill," Lawrence said.

Monday’s evacuation procedure was different from the customary emergency plan. Normally just the alarm sounds in an emergency situation. According to front office receptionist Vallen Queen, Lawrence tried to push the button that sets off the alarms, but the alarms would not ring. After the alarms would not respond, Lawrence decided to make an announcement. After the announcement the alarms finally sounded, but according to Trig/Analyt teacher and campus disaster preparation coordinator Ellie Slack only via a smoke trigger.

The library and the 100 building alarms did not go off however. Lawrence said that this was due to the alarms being hooked up to an older system which broke.

"I guess the old system finally just broke down," said a construction worker who was fixing the broken alarms on the library building and who asked that his name not be published. The worker said he was replacing the alarms and putting in new weatherproof horns to prevent future breakdowns.

According to Slack, construction workers have been working on the bells since September, and are still trying to get them all on the same system and working.

"It has been a challenge," Slack said. "It’s been a challenge with the multiple systems, old buildings and construction."

Concern has been expressed about students’ faith in the system and speed to evacuation, because of four alarms going off in the past month.

"Workers want to test the alarms but they don’t understand they can’t during school hours," Slack said.