Those staying here were woken at 1:30 a.m., by sirens relayed over a loudspeaker. They were followed by a recorded announcement of a problem that was being investigated. This sequence was relayed over and over. Finally the sirens stopped. I drifted back to sleep, but was soon wide awake because of more sirens. They lasted a while and then stopped, thankfully.
While the situation was unsettling, I could easily have put it aside, had it not been for an almost the identical situation at the last conference I attended, only weeks ago. That was the Public Risk Management Association conference in Dallas.
There, all the rooms opened into a huge atrium, where in the early morning hours a siren blasted with a loud “warning, warning,” stating that a fire had been reported and all should evacuate.
In Dallas I went out onto the balcony, and saw just a handful of people on different levels peering down to the atrium area. Like me, they were looking for some kind of directions or indication of what to do. And nothing was going on at all. Nobody was leaving. Most important, no one was on hand to give any directions. After a while another announcement was made that everything was OK and there was no fire. When I went out for another look, I saw three firemen on the ground floor, and a half-dozen people wandering in from outside.
These events were in no way a reflection of the conferences. As for the hotels, however, I would say some additional risk management was in order.
One risk management expert I talked to here acknowledged that hotels are in a tough situation in cases such as these. While they want to give an early warning to people staying there, recorded messages played over and over tend to just make people complacent, he said. This can lead to other risks, should there really be a fire, not to mention the liability issues.
Instead, he said it would have been better to have a real voice, rather than a recording, explain what was happening in real time and also give updates. That way, people could be apprised of the situation and make decisions accordingly.
I was also talking to conference attendee Dennis Silvia, president of Cedar Consulting, about this. Dennis recalled a recent conversation with a former Israeli security expert, who commented on the lack of overall security in many hotels, especially in the U.S.
This expert, he said, explained that in Israel, for example, where hotels are sometimes targets for terrorists, a suitcase left in the middle of the lobby would not be tolerated. Citizens are so aware of their surroundings, that they quickly alert security of anything amiss. It's a good guess that instances such as the one here last night, and in Dallas, would have been dealt with differently there.
My question is, was the handling of these two false alarms par for the course? And what kind of plans should be in place?
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