On Oct. 4, at 12:26 a.m., an evacuation notice was given for the MacEwan Residence due to a fire. The evacuation lasted for 20 minutes until students received an all-clear. The university says the evacuation notice was due to a minor cooking incident in a room, with the fire alarm being pulled out of caution.
“Personally, I slept through it until the last five minutes of the alarm going off,” says music student Ki Joyea. She also added that although she slept through most of it, it had a significant impact on their week and performance in classes.
Musical theatre performance students Gabriella Surowiec and Phoebe McNeill also shared their experiences with the evacuation.
“I wake up very early, oftentimes for work at the pool. I have to be up and I need my sleep,” Surowiec said. She also commented on MacEwan’s lack of accessibility; she saw a resident in a wheelchair being carried down the stairs by a group of people. McNeill added that people weren’t moving with much urgency, which was concerning.
“We’ve had a lot of fire drills recently, so I think a lot of people thought it was a drill – we were standing in the staircase for a good five minutes I’d say.”
— Phoebe McNeill, Musical Theatre Performance student
