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Related Story SHS Fire Safety Scandal

January 22, 2003 In October 2002, our staff noticed South High officials had removed fire pulls on the third floor. (That story, SHS Fire Safety Scandal, is in our archive.) But now our investigative team has discovered an even bigger fire safety problem.

It turns out that not only have the third floors' fire pulls been removed, but the remaining fire pulls, on the first and second floors, have been deactivated! The school has apparently operated without any functional fire alarm pulls for months! What's worse is that the teaching staff was not informed about this and only found out when two teachers, having discovered a bathroom fire, attempted to activate the fire alarm with a fire pull and the fire pull did nothing.

Evidently, this situation has been approved by the fire marshal, who feels that it's fine to have no fire pulls as long as the sprinkler system is functioning properly. Trouble is, there is no record of the sprinklers ever being tested. That means that the administration is gambling with the lives of students, because they can't have any idea of how well the sprinklers will work in case of emergency when they haven't even tested them!

Add this to the fact that smoke detectors aren't perfect, (in fact, several people contacted by SouthHighSucks.com have major reservations about their effectiveness) and you have a recipe for disaster. If you think this is even a little ridiculous, please call South High now at (612) 668-4300 and tell them to reactivate the fire pulls in the interest of public safety!--Harry The Spy, Staff Reporter. Editor at Large Mr. T Bagger contributed to this story.

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