Flood!! (head for the hills)

My biggest pet peeve about Biola--their excessive emphasis on fire safety.

Perhaps it's because they are breaking fire codes already by squeezing three people and all corresponding furniture into rooms built for two. Or perhaps it's out of fear that in case of an actual fire, students will forget the necessity of escaping the building.

Whatever the reason, my residence hall has pulled half a dozen fire drills on us in a single semester.

The last time this happened, sometime in November, it was one in the morning. My roommates and I were getting ready for bed and working on our computers when all of a sudden, a hideous screeching noise starts blaring and a blinding light starts flashing in the hallways, producing something like a strobe light in stereo. Frantic, we filed out of the room barefoot and bare-armed, exiting the building through a fire-escape staircase.

As we burst into the openness outside of Sigma Chi, we suddenly came to a bleak realization: it was raining. Hard. And there was no turning back.

We ended up standing in puddles, bare arms blanketed with goosebumps, alongside 300 other shivering residents. I wouldn't have had a problem with the whole ordeal if the evacuation was legitimate. But I was soon to find out that the entire complex was cleared out on account of an overdone bag of Orville Redenbacher's popcorn.

Mental note to self: find a very good hiding place inside the room for next time someone wants some Extra Buttery.

Aside from being disenchanted with emergency procedures in general because of that incident last semester, a late night movie and snack rendezvous at my friend Glenn's house had made me particularly disinclined to fire drills last Friday. When I got back at around 3:00 a.m., I was more than willing to burrow up under my blankets and catch a few zzzzzz's.

Little did I anticipate how few zzzzzzzz's there would actually be.

It was about 4:45 in the morning when that all-too-familiar sound shattered through my pleasant slumber. Bleary-eyed and disoriented, I shuffled around to turn off what I thought was the alarm. As soon as I discovered it wasn't, I zipped out of the room and away from the ear-shattering siren.

This time, I had the presence of mind to bring shoes and throw on a sweater. What I didn't bring was a blanket to shield me from the chilly air. Who would guess it could get so uncomfortably cold in a place that was 90 degrees that afternoon? In February?

I expected the standard drill--a ten minute stint that would keep us outside until some brave soul was willing to extract black popcorn from the lobby microwave. But after about half an hour, with the alarm still screeching, and no flaming Orville Redenbacher's bags in sight, I got suspicious. I went to ask my RA what was going on.

Seeing my RA distributing soda and snacks among the evacuees was the first red flag. The second was seeing her digital camera, which had just captured shots of Sigma's interior.

Apparently, a pipe had broken in one of the girls' rooms. Below their vanity, a high-pressured stream of scalding hot water was spraying through the dorm and seeping out into the hall. By the time the plumber arrived on the scene, six rooms were makeshift lakes, one inch deep. The hallway was a swamp, and the floor below us fell victim to falling ceiling tiles and major dripping action. The entire hall was a mass sauna, which had apparently triggered the alarm.

We were prohibited from reentry, but the floors above and below us got back to their rooms at about 5:30 a.m. The sun creeped up just below the horizon, and at 5:45 a.m, about 80 girls were cold and homeless.

The RA's consoled us by squeezing us into a lobby and popping in Pirates of the Caribbean. They even decided to make popcorn (despite my concern about a repeat incident involving Extra Buttery) .

But best of all was the kindness that our brothers on the first floor showed. As soon as they found out that a bunch of girls were huddled in their lobby, exposed to the elements, they brought in their bedding. One by one, each girl was given a fleecy blanket to bundle up in. I couldn't have been happier, and I'm sure the boys didn't mind saving the day, either.

It was sunup by the time we were cleared to plod back to our rooms. Fortunately, my room wasn't flooded, and within two days, all the flood damage was corrected. I'm grateful that we weren't one of the six rooms who had to find temporary shelter in a lobby.

Most especially, I applaud the chivalrous boys of the first floor. They not only preserved me from shivering to death, but they restored my faith int the male race. Kudos, guys!