Lunchtime evacuation of student union lasts about 15 minutes
Students were forced to evacuate the Russell House around 11:45 a.m. Thursday after a fire alarm rang through the building.
A smoke detector in one of the offices was activated, causing the alarm, said USC spokeswoman Margaret Lamb. From initial reports, Lamb didn’t know which office, but she confirmed it was not a scheduled fire drill.
Caroline Trawick, a fourth-year hotel, restaurant and tourism management student, was in line at Santorini’s with a few sorority sisters when the alarm went off, delaying her lunch.
“They told everyone to exit,” Trawick said. “If we’d have gotten here five minutes sooner, we probably could have gotten our food free.”
Second-year psychology student Blair Boler was even more inconvenienced.
“We were actually about to eat lunch,” he said. With a class soon approaching, he added, “I’m probably not going to be able to eat. It was very inconvenient.”
Joe Edwards, a second-year history student, however, was not too irked by the alarm.
“I was in line to get food at Burger King. It was half made, and the guy at the counter was nice enough to finish it for me before leaving. I got it for free because when I tried to pay for it, there was no one manning the register.”
The alarm had stopped by noon. It then went off again for another minute before finally subsiding.