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Fire drills, tornado drills, school violence drills, terrorism drills, and whatnot tend to make us very, very blasé about the possibility of these things actually occurring. Although, when I was in high school, I was occasionally prompted to contemplate my own mortality when I was in certain parts of the building during a tornado drill, which necessitated that we go outside to reach the basement. We all pretty much looked up into the blue skies at this moment and thought, "Okay, here's where we get sucked into the tornado and die because our school was designed by bloody morons."
The idea of course is to practice, because obviously we will have no idea what to do unless we practice all the time. And to a certain degree, I suppose, this is true, as it never would have occurred to me without lots of practice that a good idea in case of a tornado would be to go outside. However, the primary effect seems to be that an alarm going off is absolutely nothing but an annoyance as far as anyone is concerned. You sit still, hoping that it will go away soon and you won't actually have to move: ironically, precisely the opposite of what is intended.
( Some incidents of alarm )
The idea of course is to practice, because obviously we will have no idea what to do unless we practice all the time. And to a certain degree, I suppose, this is true, as it never would have occurred to me without lots of practice that a good idea in case of a tornado would be to go outside. However, the primary effect seems to be that an alarm going off is absolutely nothing but an annoyance as far as anyone is concerned. You sit still, hoping that it will go away soon and you won't actually have to move: ironically, precisely the opposite of what is intended.
( Some incidents of alarm )