Emporia State University has had 55 alarms go off in respective academic and administrative buildings since the beginning of the fall 2016 semester, with alarms being experienced at least once, more than 50 percent of all days, according to the records kept in ESU police and safety logs. 

“We spend a lot of time (responding to alarms),” said Chris Hoover, director of police and safety. “It’s a lot, but if you look at the number of academic buildings and the number of points in each (alarm) system, it’s unbelievable, the number of points.”

About a third of all alarms go off in William Allen White library and another third in singular and trusler halls.

“There were a lot of little peices on the system itself that had to be replaced, so that’s what a lot of that (alarms) was,” said Stephanie Stauffer, complex coordinator for towers complex. “Pieces had to be worked on. Our maintenance guy could do some of the lower level stuff, but if it was something more serious or something had to be replaced, we had to order it, and the company, ACS, has to come out and replace it.”

However, just because the alarm went off doesn’t mean it sounded in the building and it was evacuated.

“Some of those alarms are trouble alarms, so it doesn’t set off the whole building, but it will signal to the reception center and to police and safety that there is trouble with the system,” said Kayla Smith, complex coordinator for morse complex. “That’s the case with towers and probably some of the other buildings, too. That (alarm) will let them know that there is something to look at, but it’s not detecting smoke or fire or any of that.”

Trouble alarms mean that the alarm is still functioning, but there is something that needs attention, like a dead battery or loose connection, according to Smith.

“There’s several different protocols (for alarms),” Hoover said. “If it’s an intrusion alarm, around here, it’s not generally a big deal. It’s not like the officer is going to come, sneaking down the hallway. They’re going to come in, in a relatively tactical approach, but it’s not going to be like when you see on TV, where they come with guns drawn.”

Generally intrusion alarms go off when cables in computer labs are kicked loose, to prevent components from being stolen, according to Hoover.

Mechanical and human error are the two main reasons alarms go off. Mechanical error is when something with the system is wrong, like a dead battery.

“Human error could mean someone pulled the alarm or someone burnt popcorn,” said Smith. “Sometimes, we might see when people leave windows open and it gets really cold, that might set it off…I think it’s more so on the system in towers, but if it gets too cold it might think that there’s a problem with that. That just sets off individual rooms, not the entire system.”