I grabbed my purse/key electronics and headed out my dorm towards the stairs to join the stream of late teens/early 20s coming down the stairs.  Five stories later, we opened the emergency door to the outdoors to find ourselves face to face with a gate.  A locked gate. With an RA standing on the other side who explained that he “doesn’t think that door works.”  “Go back up to the second floor, then down the other side.”

Okay.

I turned around and discovered that the door we had just exited through didnt allow reentry, as in didn’t have a handle on the outside.

This does not seem like smart planning.

Another group of evacuees tried to exit through the non-exit just then, and we grabbed the door before they got stuck between the door and the gate as well.

Back inside, up to the second floor, across the building, back down the other staircase, and through the lobby and we were free.

Since that was hardly an optimal escape, at least it was a drill?  I guess?

I’m lined up along 12th Street with all the excitable yutes, waiting to be let back inside.

So that’s fun.