Screeching sirens. Flashing lights. Swarms of people trying to squeeze down the same stairwell.

These are the signs of a typical fire drill, right? Not for the residents of the Village Apartments, whose fire drills on Friday, Sept. 15, and Tuesday, Sept. 19, left some students angry and confused.

During the drill, many of the residents of the Village Apartments were unable to hear the alarms and did not know they were supposed to evacuate. Some residents claim that members of the Department of Public Safety were rude and demanding.

According to senior Jason Bean, a Village resident, a DPS officer came to his open bedroom door, began shouting at him and then left. The officer acted as if Bean should have known what was going on. Bean, however, had no idea what the officer was talking about.

“I was clueless, absolutely clueless,” said Bean.

Connie Tillman, DPS officer, believes that if the students think DPS acted rudely toward them, then it was because the officers were acting as if it were the real thing.

“[Students] don’t understand the seriousness of it,” said Tillman. She says that DPS would have only acted unfairly if the students refused to cooperate in the first place.

According to Argyle Wade, Associate Director of the Department of Residence Life, the alarm is designed to attract the attention of DPS and the fire department to the source of the fire, not necessarily to alert the residents. The system is not designed like those in the residence halls, but like an apartment complex.

“Students shouldn’t have heard the alarm in their apartment,” Wade said.

Since this has caused confusion in previous years, Wade sent out a memo to each Village resident, explaining the system and letting them know that they probably wouldn’t hear the alarm. Whether or not the students actually read the memo is a different story, Wade thought.

Bean admitted to not reading the memo completely but just skimming over it enough to know when the fire drills would take place.

So how safe is a building where the fire alarm cannot be heard?

Ty Dennison, Facilities Supervisor, explained that the apartments are equipped with smoke alarms, sprinklers and fire walls instead of alarms. These devices are designed to contain any fire.

In the case of a fire, residents who cannot hear the alarm will only know to evacuate when DPS knocks on their door. Dennison said that when the alarm goes off, it dials directly into the DPS office, allowing them to quickly arrive at the scene.

Dennison also feels that DPS was not trying to be rude, but merely enforcing the fact that the drills must be taken seriously.

“They’re just trying to do their job,” Dennison said, “making sure no one gets hurt.”