Fire Alarm in the ISAT Building
In the wee hours of the morning on October 21, 2000, when most college students are still up, the fire alarm went off in the ISAT Building, and was doing so for about an hour. How do I know about it? Well, I didn’t pull it, but as I was going around Potomac Hall, I noticed flashing lights going on throughout the ISAT Building. So… I surmised it was a fire alarm. With that, I dashed to my room, grabbed the Mavica and my scooter, and I was off! Police were already there, checking out the building, and they didn’t see me. Before I left Potomac, though, I ran into Mecca Marsh, our Hall Director, who was wondering why on earth I was still up, and with the scooter in tow, no less. I explained, and then admitted that yes, I was crazy. She said not to get arrested, and with that, off I went. Reading the police log later, it turns out the cause was a faulty smoke detector.
Even as ISAT’s emergency system blares, that thing (what is it supposed to be?) on the front of the building still stands tall.
Beyond here is a restricted area at this point!
And here’s one of our little friends just flashing its little heart out…
(By the way, do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a strobe light?)
In the reflection off the rear door, you can see some of the strobe lights flashing.
And here’s more of our strobe light friends.
“Got one! Kind of.”
Again, as a testament to the difficulty of taking picture of strobes, this is a partial victory – I got a great reflection.
From the side of the building, everything looks like business as usual…
“VICTORY IS MINE!!!”
I got two strobe light shots through a classroom window! They’re not in great focus, but I got them nonetheless. SCORE!
Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. They all kind of flash in a rhythm… once a second there’s a flash, but they don’t all do it at the same time. So they kind of do it in a row, kind of like “the wave”.
And outside, except for the drone of the alarm, all is quiet.
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Again, a testament to how hard it is to take pictures of strobe lights in action… even after establishing the rhythm of the flashes, and figuring out how I can use one light as a cue to take a picture of another one, I still failed…
Finally, the police who were on the situation silenced the alarm, and so there was nothing more to see…