vanrhijnadams

[vanrhijnadams]

3 way call = 3 or more participants on the same dedicated phone call (not a party line where anyone on the phone line can hear/speak)

call switching = while on a call with one person, you can put them on hold and talk to a different person

[vanrhijnadams]

please read the explanations below the poll for more details about the options before voting! :-) choose the FIRST ONE IN THE LIST THAT APPLIES, not the first one that happened to you, the one that happened most often, or the one that happened for real. then if you want you can share what other drills you had in the tags, especially if they are not listed!

Answers to frequently asked questions:

Some people live/board at school, and for those people "wouldn't they just close the school if that happened" may not apply.

Some people travel a long way to school, such that a school might be safer than traveling back even for a threat with advanced notice.

Some schools act as designated shelters in emergencies, or are the most safe building in a wide radius.

Yes, it counts if you were homeschooled!

If you didn't have any drills, vote for no emergency drills other than fire or lockdown (same if you only had fire drills or only had lockdown/lockout drills).

A nuclear bomb drill is for an incoming nuclear bomb. Do not vote for this option if you had drills for a nuclear power plant explosion or meltdown. You are more likely to have had nuclear bomb drills if you attended school in the USA or the USSR in the 1960s to 1980s.

Armed mass abduction drills (aka security drill or kidnapping drill, might be unnamed) are more common in conflict zones with organized crime, militant/terrorist groups, or opposing/occupying military threats. They are intended to prepare teachers and students for what to do if multiple armed assailants raid the school to abduct multiple students, such as to collect ransom, and/or make political demands, and/or because they are ideologically opposed to education, and/or as an act of military dominance or terrorism. It is NOT the same as an armed intruder drill, or being told one of the things an armed intruder might do is take students hostage or kidnap them. Drills/practices for mass abduction usually involve evacuation. (If you attended school in e.g. the USA, UK, or Western Europe, it is unlikely you have had one. If you attended school, say, during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, or in Nigeria in the 2010s, you are more likely to have had one.) (Another demographic I was expecting to potentially have had them is people who attended school in diplomatic compounds or near political or military installations.)

A lahar drill is a higher ground evacuation drill to escape the pathway of incoming lahar, which is (long story short) extremely fast moving destructive volcanic mudflow. You are more likely to have had a lahar drill if you attended school in New Zealand/Aotearoa or Washington state, USA.

Active shooter/hostage drills are for what to do in a situation where shots have already been fired on campus, or staff or students have already been taken hostage by a person threatening to use a gun on them or others. (They may involve reenactment such as audio of gunshots or banging on classroom doors.) This is not the same as an armed intruder or firearm on campus drill, which might be lumped in with other potential risks requiring lockdown/lockout procedures. (I.e. if it was a lockdown drill that might have been meant to prepare for an active shooter or gun on campus, but it was not framed as an active shooter drill to the students, that is in the general lockdown category, not in the active shooter category.)

In an armed intruder drill or suspicious person on campus drill, there may be an assumption that there is potential to de-escalate a situation without actual physical harm to students or staff. These are less common in the USA now because of how prevalent gunfire scenarios in schools have become. If you attended school in the USA post-Columbine (1999) but before Sandy Hook (2012), you are more likely to have had armed intruder drills than active shooter drills. This would fall into the "general lockdown" category if a lockdown was presented to you as having multiple possible causes, one of which is if someone has a weapon on school grounds.

"General lockdown" is just a catch all phrase I made up to describe any lockdown or shelter in place drill where no one can leave or enter the building, due to various possible threats that aren't necessarily described; probably not called "general lockdown".

Non-nuclear bomb threat can be air raid or planted bomb. You can say which in the tags!

Please vote hurricane if you had typhoon or tropical storm drills! (They're not necessarily the same but I was thinking of all of those.)

Several people being like "how could you be surprised by a hurricane". Not all emergency drills are about being surprised. They are about knowing what to do in an unavoidable/unpreventable emergency at school. Sometimes hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical storms are unavoidable in a school setting! A hurricane drill might be an evacuation drill like "let's practice how we line up to leave and get picked up and where you should shelter if we receive notice of a hurricane/evacuation order", not just "let's practice what we will do during the hurricane" (but that also happens!)

Non-fire non-poll-option emergency drills from the notes:

Bushfire

Forest fire

Wildfire

Blizzard preparedness

Snow avalanche

Rock avalanche

Wind/gales

Sandstorm

Nuclear meltdown or explosion (mostly power plant)

External explosion (industrial)

External chemical or gas leak (mostly industrial plant or nearby industrial transport)

Internal chemical or gas leak

Poison gas threat

Biochemical hazard

Air pollution

Wild animal (snakes, moose, bears, bees, wild dogs, coyote, mountain lion)

Drive-by shooting

Inbound missile

Area-wide drill for military occupation

Escapee from secure facility nearby (hospital or prison)

Social services or law enforcement investigation (notes example was homeschool) (have also heard of this happening in schools in insular communities such as religious compounds)

[vanrhijnadams]

this url perhaps makes the most sense to use.