2/11/2012 Evacuating Planes, Ships and School Buses

I was carefully putting all the lesson plan materials
in order out at Crystal Springs Elementary the other
morning when I heard the announcement on the PA.
"We will be having a bus evacuation drill in ten minutes,
all available personnel please assist."
Well, in nine years of subbing I had
never seen a school bus evacuation drill
so I was pretty excited to go check that out.
I went to the front of the school where the buses
were lined up and introduced myself to the driver
that didn't have anyone helping her.
She gave me the assignment of standing between
the buses and directing the kids to line up against the wall
after she had popped open the rarely-used side door
and helped them down to ground level.
I did my job and felt a sense of relief
that the school districts do these drills.
School bus evacuations are very rare
which makes them all the more important.
I went on with my day of teaching reading and math
and got home and thought about that drill.
I couldn't help but remember being inside the
airplane mock-ups during flight attendant training in 1987
and having to shout the evacuation commands
and then running down a dark cat-walk
and pulling the red handle to release the tail-cone of the DC-9
so the slide could pop out.
Yikes, that was scary.
The only thing I would do differently if I was a school administrator
would be to train some ABAs in case the bus really did need
evacuating. An Able Body Assistant is the civilian
sitting next to the windows on a jet that is briefed
to open the window in an evacuation.
I'd have the 6th graders trained to open the door
if the driver was knocked out and how to
command the younger students to safety and keep them together.
But that's just me.
I'm still mad at the cruise ship captain that jumped ship
after he ran it aground last month.
At Coast Guard training last year in Honolulu
we were all trained for evacuation jobs
that all depended on the signals from the captain.
Norwegian Cruise Line does way more safety training
than the other cruise lines
but the bottom line is:
Know matter if you are on a plane, ship or bus,
know where your emergency exits are
and how to operate them.
Think about safety.