If you’re reading this in your dorm, you may want to pack up and head outside.
All dorms are scheduled for mandatory fire drills and fire safety checks this week, requiring students to evacuate their dorms for up to two hours. During that time, resident assistants will be searching rooms to make sure students are out.
Students found in their dorms during the drill will be required to attend a two-day fire safety course, said Alberto Rapaport, an RA for Keys Complex, building 3.
Fire drills — and the separate safety checks — will be at random times between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. starting today and ending Jan. 19. Rapaport said students were notified of the drills via e-mail, floor meetings and signs in dorm hallways.
He specified that RAs will not be searching through students’ desks, dressers or book bags.
“We can not legally search through your stuff,” he said.
Steven Sengberg, a 21-year-old senior at UF living in Keys, said he is “pretty sure” he knows the fire safety regulations. He said he usually goes to his friend’s building to wait for the fire drills to finish in his room.
Elissa Hausmann, a 20-year-old junior also living in Keys, said she didn’t know the drills were scheduled to start on Monday but figured they would be this week since this is her second year in the dorms.
