Thursday, June 23, 2011

Another difference between the schools in NY and the schools in Israel

Wednesday we (the entire country of Israel) had a missile drill. There was a national exercise in case missiles are shot all over the country; it was also a test to see where people heard the sirens and where they didn't or it was difficult to hear it.
There were two sirens-- one at 11 am and one at 7 pm. During the 11 am siren, I was at work in one of my schools. We took all the kids down to the miklat (shelter) and they were down there for 10 minutes. During the 7 pm siren I was in my apartment and briefly contemplated going down to the miklat to see how it looked all cleaned out. I nixed it, because I'm sure it just looks empty. In addition to the purpose of the drill was to see where sirens could/could not be heard, it was also to make sure people know where a close-by shelter is.

There was also a shelter drill in one of the schools I worked in in NY. It was pretty simple-- they rang an alarm/bell, and everyone went to stand in the hallway, facing the wall. Theory being it was away from windows. It was also that you could do a specific number of shelter drills in lieu of fire drills.

Speaking of, they don't seem to have fire drills in the schools here, nor are smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors standard in apartments/houses in this country. But we have national missile drills. WTF?

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