Paly had its first false fire alarm of the year after a smoke detector went off approximately five minutes after fifth period began.

“No, it was not a planned drill,” according to assistant principal Chuck Merritt. “It turns out that a spiderweb hanging down from the smoke detector broke the [infrared] beam that the alarm uses to detect smoke.”

It was originally thought that the smoke detector malfunctioned, but when the fire department visually checked the scene, they saw the spiderwebs and within minutes the detector was replaced.

The year’s first fire drill was supposed to occur on Oct. 11, and some people have been questioning the efficiency of our school’s fire escape plans.

“It took a while for our teacher to figure out what to do,” junior Tamar Ben-Shachar said. “We went out, it was very chaotic, and nobody knew where to go.”

Freshmen had no idea what to do in this instance since it was their first fire drill at Paly.

“Nobody told me where to go,” freshman Anabel Homnack said. “I thought I was supposed to go to my advisory class and stay there.”

In the eyes of the administration, although the alarm was not a success, it was definitely a good learning experience.

“Practice makes it perfect.” Merritt said. “Whether it was planned or unplanned, every emergency prep is useful.”

Merritt stated that certain problems must be fixed for next time, including updating teachers on the emergency plans, giving them new signs so students can reach them more easily, and making sure the students know the system.

“The old system that we had about three years ago constantly crashed, making many alarms start,” Merritt said. “That gave us a lot of practice, but since last year when the system was replaced, we did the required amounts of practices, and were more rusty when this one came along.”