What should hotel personell do in case of a fire alarm? FD people?

Question

My husband and I stayed at a hotel last night called 'The white eagle'. It's also called McMenamins. The story goes that it is haunted,but we didn't care. Apperently one lady hapened to see a ghost and started yelling, that she needed her kids out and jammed the alarm, so the fire alarm went of at 2 am, while the bar downstairs was still open.
In the upstairs hotel area are about 15 rooms.
There was no emergency programm in the room and no one of the personell came up to tell us what to do. I believe that even if you consider an alarm 'false', don't assume so, untill the FD clears everything and get your guest evacuated to a save area.
I've been taught to do so, when I working at a juvenile facility.
What is the proper way to act ? I believe they bring people in danger by not providing the right info and taking the right actions, right?

Answer 1

THE LADY WHO SAW A GHOST IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SETTING THE ALARM OFF MANUALLY. (FALSE ALARM)

THE HOTEL SHOULD HAVE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE TO FOLLOW IN CASE OF AN ALARM.

IF THE MANUAL ALARM WAS SET OFF THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN TIED TO THE PHONE SYSTEM AND THE FIRE DEPT NOTIFIED.

THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THE HOTEL TO ASCERTAIN THE ALARM AS FALSE OR ONE TO RESPOND TOO.

Answer 2

Hotels should of course assume every alarm is real.

The hotel you stayed in sounds very small and small hotels have very limited resources and budgets. They are more likely to be run by less trained management and the management cannot impart, what they do not possess.

In this case, at 2 AM there was probably one desk clerk on duty and maybe a bartender and a few waitresses.

If you are taking your family to a hotel, try to find a new structure and with a recognized chain. They are more likely to have proper training, because the franchise requires some training and helps with other training.

Most hotels have evacuation procedures and plans on the back of the front door. In case of fire, don't wait for an understaffed hotel to send people they don't have on duty to give you specialized instructions. If you heard the alarm, you don't wait for smoke or fire, you leave your room if it is safe to do so.

Answer 3

Maybe they lived in the Montana State University-Billings dorms for a while. The fire alarms would often go off at 3 in the morning on the worst days for weather out of the year, for reasons such as a pipe froze and dripped water on the control panel or a random glitch in the system. This would sometimes happen more than once in a night. It became nearly impossible to take the fire alarm seriously. Especially considering that in the probably 15 or more fire alarm soundings they experienced during the four years I was there, NONE of them were for an actual fire! The closest thing to an actual fire was some burnt toast in the cafeteria. No actual fire, just a thin cloud of smoke and a barely perceivable black circle on the ceiling. I can't say that I really take any fire alarm seriously after that. I take notice when I start seeing smoke.

Answer 4

They should make sure that all occupants are removed from the hotel to a safe staging area.