NIC students apparently don’t care about the possibility of an earthquake happening in North Idaho.
As part of the Great Idaho Shake Out event, NIC participated in an earthquake drill on Thursday, Oct. 15. The purpose was to test the emergency notification ‘Skylert’ in different locations.
Although many thought the drill was not very effective. NIC students agreed that the biggest problem with the drill was that the alarms were not loud enough.
“I was walking to my classroom, walking literally right next to the alarm, and you could barely hear it, even one of the people who worked in the building was like ‘wow this is not very loud’ and just kept walking,” dual enrollment student Natalia Martinez said. “I don’t think it was very effective.”
Overall, some students thought the professors did a great job following the procedures, but there was a lack of involvement from the students.
“I think my teacher did a good job but everybody’s reaction was like ‘oh do we really have to do this?’ We didn’t even hear the alarm in our room,” Robbyn Trogden, 18, Business Administration said. “We realized it was happening because a message popped on our screen.”
According to Richard King, peer tutor coordinator, he walked around the room and announced the beginning of the drill and recommended the students to follow the procedure.
“Some students took part, others did not,” King said. “The best part was watching the students all were receiving phone calls at once and, because the college skills center does not allow the use of cellular devices, they all were leaving the room to answer the phones.”
According to Coeur d’Alene Public Schools District Administrative Center, one of the objectives of the drill was to remind everyone to “Drop, Cover and Hold On” if they feel an earthquake happening.
The ShakeOut also served as an opportunity for first responders and officials to test a variety of emergency alert and notification systems.
More than 100,000 people throughout Idaho participated and more than 2,300 Kootenai County entities participated in the event.