March 2026 Slice of Life, No. 26
Fire drills.
Tornado drills.
Lockdown drills.
Tsunami drills.
Earthquake drills.
Shelter-in-place drills.
All sounds of impending danger.
How do these monthly drills affect our children? As I ponder this, I take a step back from this present moment and reflect upon my own childhood–upon three drills that were part of my routine school life, about their effect on me, about the things I learned. Perhaps as I share my experiences and thoughts, they will shed some light to help us help children navigate the fear they create.
Fire drills.
The school alarms warned us of possible danger and the need to exit the school quickly and orderly—no talking, single file, keeping a straight line, moving away from the building, and being aware of our classmates as our teacher took roll. There were a few important assignments: closing classroom windows, turning off the lights.
Usually the firetrucks didn’t come. That was a sure sign that we were practicing; there was no need to be concerned. We enjoyed the break from studies and the chance to be outside.
Sometimes firetrucks came. If we heard their sirens approaching, we’d scan the windows of the two-story brick building for smoke or flames. When the firetrucks came, I wondered about my school and about my things inside, but not about anyone’s safety because I knew everyone had exited the building.
Tornado drills.
A coded alarm alerted us to the need to take cover from a possible tornado. We would move quickly into the hallway, sit on the floor against the inside wall, away from our large classroom windows. We would bend low, curling up like roly-poly bugs. No one talked.
On days when the weather was not threatening and I didn’t hear the town’s steady, high-pitched, wailing siren. I didn’t worry. I knew it was just a drill, and it came as a break from our routine studies.
But during tornado season (we knew it was tornado season because we heard the adults talking about it), on days with ominous skies colored a strange greenish-yellow and filled with swirling cloud formations, I worried about my parents and brothers. I waited to hear the town siren. I listened to stormy sounds as I crouched, head down, eyes closed, wondering if I would hear the roar of a train, the sound of a tornado.
Then the all clear signal would come, and we would stand up, stretch, and quietly return to our classroom to continue the work we had left behind. We lived in tornado alley. Tornadoes had always been part of our lives.
Air raid drills.
A coded alarm –a crescendo, rising and falling– blared its warning of the approach of the enemy, an enemy who would destroy us. At that warning, we dropped everything to crouch under our desks. There was no time to move into the hallway.
Noisy seconds of our shoes against the wood floor as we scrambled under desks were followed by a hush over which the ear-splitting siren screamed impending, unimaginable horror.
Straining to hear the drone of bombers, the sound we’d heard in WWII movies, the sound of the enemy coming to destroy us, we waited. Knowing when we heard that sound we’d die, we waited. Not moving, not talking, we listened and waited. The moments seemed like hours.
Then the all-clear code would sound, and relief would hang heavy in the room as we crawled from under our desks. Sober talk helped loosen the tentacles of fear, helped our hearts return to normal. We were slow in returning to school work that had been interrupted. We needed time to decompress.
Concluding thoughts.
Even though I never experienced a fire, a tornado touchdown, an air raid while at school, I did feel and do remember the terror of those sirens, heralds of death and destruction.
Looking back, I ponder, How did those experiences shaped me?
Because adults around me did not shrink from the task of teaching me about such times, because they were calm, rather than scarring me with fear, those experiences contributed to the development of my ability to cope in inevitable times of terror, death, and destruction.
I am thankful for those adults — my parents, my teachers.
I am thankful they did not shield me from their reality. I am thankful that under their guidance, I grew in a confidence that no matter what came, I was prepared to protect and defend. No matter what, I believed I could and would survive.
May I always take every opportunity to help our children grow strong and confident in spite of shadows of destruction and death, in spite of the sounds of terror.
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