The fire alarm has gone off before at the day care centre while I was there, and I helped the staff get the kids out of the place. But today, when it went off, I said, "Can I help?" and immediately the response from the teacher was, "No, we're taking them out the back door," and then she shut the door of the classroom immediately with me standing outside in the hall.

Strange, it seemed a little more urgent than usual, the way they were reacting. And then I remembered - it's September 11th. So I walked quickly out of the building, and waited across the parking lot for all the little ones to come out of the side door of the school. I wondered whether this thing of closing the doors to the rooms was a security thing, while the children are getting ready. Maybe they have a staff member look through the halls to make sure it's safe, no psycho-gun-wielding dude roaming the halls or something.

Anyhow, I stuck around in the yard with my son's class in case it was a bomb threat - bomb threats take a long, long time to clear rather than just false fire alarms, and at a past bomb threat at the school the staff called all the parents to pick the kids up. I figured it would save me a trip. But it turns out it was just a prank - well I'm pretty sure it was anyhow, since I doubt anyone would be tasteless enough to schedule a fire drill for September 11th (especially since the fire stations in Kingston had a memorial ringing of the alarms planned for their stations). And three fire trucks showed up after the fact instead of one being there right at the time of the drill.

Anyone else have anything strange happen today?

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]