Fire drill records called into question

Despite having the costliest residence hall fire of the year last November, residents of Granville Towers have not had a fire drill since — and it’s unclear when they ever did.

And some residence halls on campus might not be conducting drills either, though a Campus Security Report released last week by the Department of Public Safety said each hall carried out four fire drills in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Of 40 random students interviewed by The Daily Tar Heel, only three could recall a time when a fire drill was conducted while they were living on campus where the fire department did not come. Students interviewed lived throughout campus and in Granville Towers.

“We didn’t do any fire drills, but the alarm was pulled maybe four times,” said sophomore Connor Michos, who lived in Morrison residence hall as a freshman. “That’s the closest thing I’ve done.”

But Gordon Merklein, executive director of real estate development for UNC said he has no reason to doubt the security report.

“If DPS says it’s accurate, then I’m sure it is,” Merklein said.

Last week, Kelly Stasko, general manager of Granville Towers, said in an interview that the buildings do not perform regular fire drills.

During the fire last year, a PVC pipe connected to the sprinkler system burst, flooding rooms and displacing around 140 residents.

She said an area in Granville Towers South constantly monitors fire safety within rooms and in common areas, and Granville does not perform drills because they don’t want students to become complacent.

“We need students to evacuate and take every incidence seriously,” Stasko said.

But Dace Bergen, the interim Chapel Hill fire marshal, said each residence hall, including Granville, should be conducting fire drills at least four times a year.

“Yes, there is a code schedule on that,” Bergen said.

“The requirement is quarterly.”

After they were contacted by The Daily Tar Heel, Stasko and Bergen began working together to schedule fire drills.

“We have adopted the four fire drill a year policy,” she said Wednesday.

Mary Beth Koza, director of the University’s Department of Environment, Health and Safety, said her department schedules University fire drills, including those for residence halls on campus.

She said accidental alarms — such as when students pull the alarms in the halls when there is no fire — do not count because drills are supposed to be scheduled and unannounced.

The fire department often will not show up if a drill is planned, so this indicates that few to no drills were actually carried out.

Koza said sometimes members of the fire department go to drills anyway for training.

She said that a schedule has been set for campus residence halls this year but she cannot release it because fire drills are supposed to be a surprise. A copy of last year’s schedule was not immediately available.

According the security report, there have been 16 fires between 2010 and 2012 in campus residence halls.

Aside from the one in Granville, none of those fires last year caused more than $25,000 in damage.

In the report, the fire in Granville was listed as costing the University between $500,000 and $1 million.

Bergen could not say exactly what percentage of fire truck dispatches were for residence hall fires, but he did say that a plurality of calls, 45 percent, were for EMS situations. He also said that approximately 35-40 percent of dispatches were the result of an automatic fire alarm.

Stasko said Granville Towers is not required to report its numbers because it is privately owned. The number of fire drills for 2010 and 2011 are marked “NA.” Granville Towers reported no fire drills in 2012.

“Granville Towers is in a bit of a gray area,” she said.

After the fire last year, Granville residents were relocated to vacant rooms within Granville and other residence halls around campus.

Sophomore Pankti Patel lived in Granville Towers last year. Her current roommate was one of the students living in the flooded East Tower who ended up in Hinton James.

“Granville didn’t cover any costs at all,” Patel said.

Rick Bradley, associate director of the Department of Housing and Residential Education, said the department is not involved with Granville’s financial decisions.

UNC’s housing department does not cover the cost of damage to personal belongings and recommends residents purchase renter’s insurance. Stasko said because the pipe incident was isolated, the current procedures have remained the same, except for the addition of fire drills this week.

Freshman Sunshine Tsosie said she still feels safe in Granville Towers.

“It’s a nice place to live and it has great amenities. I also feel the security is great,” she said.

Bradley said the safety of Granville tends to be comparable to that of campus residence halls.

He also said the housing department provides community directors and resident advisers to Granville.

“Granville students are Carolina students, so the University would do what they could to help if another situation occurred,” he said.

university@dailytarheel.com