The Culver Community Schools Corporation will not have to pay $2,100 in false alarm charges to the town. Various issues with a newly-installed fire alarm system at the middle/high school resulted in the fire department being called to the school seven times this fall.
Culver Schools Interim Superintendent Chuck Kitchell told the town council Tuesday that a few adjustments had to be made to the system’s sensitivity. “The first two, which were no charge, were situations that happened in a locker room after a football game on a Friday night,” he explained. “What we found out is those boys go into those locker rooms and turn on those showers and they get them pretty hot. And the steam in the locker rooms would actually set off a sensor in the middle school locker room. We worked with the company that installed the new unit, the new system in the building. They actually replaced one of the sensors in that locker room.” Similarly, fake smoke used during a “Haunted Hallways” event also set off the fire alarm.
However, some of the false alarms seemed to be due to bad luck, more than sensitivity problems. “We had three incidents in the middle school gymnasium of a basketball hitting a pull station,” Kitchell said. “I’ve been around for a long time and have been in a number of gyms, and the likelihood of a basketball hitting a pull station is pretty slim. But for some reason, it happened to us three times in a month.” That resulted in the school corporation buying cages to protect five pull stations from basketballs.
But Kitchell said one of the big issues was the fact that this is the first time the school’s fire alarm system has had a direct connection to the fire department. “That was one of the issues that a lot of people wanted us to have,” he said. “They wanted that alarm to have access to the fire department. And now it does, and we’ve had to work through the new system to get all those kinks out. Well, unfortunately, and fortunately, the fire department came running out about seven times.” On a positive note, Kitchell says the incidents have demonstrated the speed at which the fire department is able to respond, thanks to the new alarm system.
The Town Council voted unanimously to dismiss the charges, noting that it was a new system and issues had to be worked out. Members also pointed out that they would rather avoid demanding money from another taxing entity, if possible.
