Elementary School

The school fire drills I have the least fond memories of would be my elementary school.  Built in 1997, it had an EST-2 system, back when GE owned the EST name.

The signals were EST Integrity horn-strobes, with single-gang Integrity remote strobes in each classroom.  Before I knew what remote strobes were, I would be scared of even sitting near them, because I hated the sound the Integrities made.

Pull stations were 270-SPOs, with glass rods in each of them, and all were mounted under Stopper II covers.  I remember back in the first grade some kid pushed me into the pull station cover and it fell off, making a piercing sound.  I was so scared of "pulling the fire alarm" even though it wasn't my fault.

The smoke detectors were the older "traffic cone" style EST Signature series detectors, which I personally think look very ugly.

An interesting thing to note is that for fire drills not only would the system go off (in continuous, of all things), the PA system would play a hi-lo tone.  I have no idea why they did that or if it is even allowed to function that way for drills.