Pirates help students prepare for emergencies

Pirates dropped anchor on campus to help students prepare for life’s storms.

“Arrrrr ye ready?” pirate Kim Stahl asked students as she roamed walkways near Lenoir Hall.

Students responded with smiles, nervous nods and an occasional confident “Yes, I am.” Stahl then pointed them toward the TARRR Heel Preparedness Festival in the Pit and surrounding area on Sept. 19. Campus Safety purposefully held the festival on International Talk Like a Pirate Day during National Preparedness Month.

Stahl, senior IT policy and process lead in Information Technology Services, was one of 15 University staff volunteers transformed into pirates. Professional movie makeup artists Dean and Starr Jones, who handled make-up for three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, outfitted the motley crew with prosthetics (including one human-arm-turned-claw), smudgy paint, scraggly beards, hats and blousy costumes.

Asked why she became a pirate, Stahl said, “It’s important to be prepared. Plus, this is fun.”

Firefighters from the Chapel Hill Fire Department extinguish flames in a demonstration of a dorm room fire. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Safety demonstrations and preparedness resources

Under canopies and at tables around the Pit and between Davis Library and Lenoir Hall, over two dozen safety-related exhibitors held demonstrations on real-life emergencies. The aroma of “scallywag stew” – onions, garlic among the ingredients – from a Carolina Dining demonstration on emergency cooking drifted on the breeze.

On the Pit’s east side, students lined up to use a fire extinguisher, many for the first time. Thirty extinguishers sat in two rows next to a brick wall. Environment, Health and Safety staff handed each person one and coached them on snuffing out a propane fire a few feet away.

Using a fire extinguisher for the first time, sophomore Meghana Malempati aimed and triggered the blast.

On the Pit’s opposite side, students took the steering wheel of an Orange County Sheriff Dodge Charger while wearing a headset that showed different distracted driving scenarios. Nearby, students wearing goggles that simulated the effects of drinking alcohol took sometimes wobbly steps under a Chapel Hill police officer’s guidance.

Near Lenoir Hall, people clambered onto a 14-foot-long inflatable rescue boat to take photos and learn about water safety from South Orange Rescue personnel. At other stations, students practiced CPR compressions on dummies and learned techniques to control bleeding.

Sprinklers make a difference

At noon, pirate Zay Watkins, whose hat sported a plush green parrot, joined crewmates to direct students to the festival’s main attraction. “Do ye want to see fire?” bellowed Watkins, associate chemical hygiene officer in EHS. In Polk Place sat a trailer for demonstrating the effectiveness of sprinklers in a dorm or apartment bedroom.

State fire marshal officials started a fire in a mock residence hall room without sprinklers. Within minutes, the trailer looked like a huge oven spewing black smoke as the 900-degree fire engulfed the room. The crowd instinctively stepped back from the intense heat until firefighters from the Town of Chapel Hill doused the blaze.

A few minutes later, on the trailer’s other side, sprinklers quickly doused a second fire.

Joseph Moore III, a first-year student and community governor of Hinton James Residence Hall, recorded video of the fires. “Hinton James has 10 floors and about 1,000 people. This demonstration shows the importance of fire safety. People underestimate fire,” he said.

“Our goal for the festival is to create an engaging atmosphere that brings together students, faculty and staff to learn about emergency preparedness from campus, local, state and federal partners so that they can be informed, prepared and ready to take action,” said festival organizer Justin Miller, emergency management coordinator in Carolina’s emergency management and planning department.