Jet,

You just reminded me of a relatively recent experience ... I’m on the emergency team at work, and have been working with a number of other folks for whom being prepared had meant that they had seen the evacuation plan. By and large these are great people, just haven't had much real world experience or training.

At one of our recent meetings, we were discussing the evacuation meeting point captains, their needed equipment etc. and I quietly observed that whistles were missing from the kits, some of the others at the meeting laughed and were vocal about their thoughts that whistles were totally un-needed.

One of the management members asked “…why whistles?” which gave me about two minutes of free speech in which I explained that the battery powered megaphones provided in the kits could be dropped, have dead batteries, get lost or be out of commission for some other reason, and that the average person can only shout for a little while and noted that the meeting point captain has to get a rapid head count and determine who is missing from the building evacuation etc. There were a few nods of approval, however the nay Sayers kept up their mantra of useless item, extra piece of equipment. I pointed out that redundancy is a great thing, even though we have Nextel cell phone radios and megaphones we should be prepared.

Feeling that I might better express myself by “walking my talk”, I pulled out my EDC neck lanyard from under my dress shirt. Many raised eyes at this. Even though I’ve worn it since before 911 and have kept an office USK, none at work had ever seen this in the years that I’ve worked there (and few others ever noticed my USK that I keep at my desk). I showed them my Fox 40 Glow in the Dark whistle, Brunton watchband compass and ARC AAA light. A few “McGyver” comments were made and management had us move on with the meeting.

After the meeting, my manager called me in and started picking my brain, I suggested EVACU-8 masks for the emergency crew. Interestingly enough, she gave the emergency team approval to purchase whistles and masks the next week. (SEE NOTE BELOW) I felt pretty good, since the issue was on the fence when the meeting wrapped up.

Later that afternoon, just before quitting time, a co-worker (who is also on the team) and I were in our shared office, when he made a comment about we’ll need to get a real whistle, “since that little thing would not be loud enough”. I smiled and tossed him the entire lanyard and said to check it out for himself.

As he raised it to his lips and started to blow it, I suggested that he should go outside, take a deep breath and really “honk down on it” since it was a “just a small whistle”. Whereupon he quickly took a deep breath and blew it so hard that his eyes bugged out, just as I got my fingers in my ears. (I figured he would blow the whistle, but I really did not expect him trying it out right then in the office!)

Hooooboy…the look on his face WAS PRICELESS! Especially as most of the first floor office staff on our side of the building came in to see what was going on. He said that he could not hear well for a few minutes afterwards and fully retracted his objections about the whistle. The rapidly collecting office staff (and management I might add) wanted to know what happened. He was totally red-faced at the amount of totally unrehearsed response and attention that he just got. He was completely honest about it and “fessed up” to management who was also quite interested in the disturbance to our normally very quiet and professional office work environment (lots of shirts and ties here.)

Having just gained a VERY attentive audience, I asked if he thought it that it would do the job, he said yes.

With a big grin, I told him that I was VERY happy he thought so, and reached under my desk and pulled out my office USK (contains about 10 pounds of "stuff") and said that if it had not been loud enough, I would let him try my full size STORM whistle.

Again, the looks were priceless as I unzipped the USK, reached in and showed him the much larger whistle. The onlookers thanked me for only letting him see the small whistle. As you may have already guessed, several others had to try out both of my whistles >outside< LOL.

Since it was Friday and almost quitting time, the whole thing died down with no hard feelings from management.

Some of the other team members and several onlookers had many questions about my office kit at the time, and over the next few weeks, several privately came to see me and get a better look at it. Slowly the light is beginning to spread.

In the following months, we’ve noticed that our immediate manager has been quietly been carrying a flat whistle on her key chain (she also has asked about my ARC AAA light, which I pulled out in a meeting during a <5 minute power outage two weeks ago.)

FOLLOW UP NOTE
In closing, just to make life complete, a meeting point captain’s megaphone was not working when we subsequently had a total building evacuation.

He was rather loud and adamant that he “should have had a whistle to fall back on”. Interestingly enough, he was not in the meeting mentioned above, his grousing further added to my credibility and I’ve noticed that my comments are being given more attention during our various meetings.

Hmmm…I’m still getting called “McGyver” but now it is with a smile or grin instead of sarcastic sneers. I’m fully aware that “preparedness is a journey and not a destination” and am pretty careful not to do anything to detract from the slowly increasing respect / attention that being prepared sometimes allows us.

btw
Our building evacuation was a full dress affair (the Fire Dept. had two units onsite with full crews). They were VERY complementary about our getting 500+ people out of our building in 3 minutes 42 seconds (as determined by our closed circuit TV system.)

Life is good and getting better.

Regards,
Comanche7