Recently Park Springs and the DeKalb County Fire Department joined forces.  Our Atlanta active adult community has reached out to the local fire department in order to provide training to our Members on what to do in the unlikely event of a fire.  DeKalb County Fire Officials jumped at the opportunity to use Park Springs as an offsite training center.

At approximately 9:00am, a fire alarm was initiated in the 1000 building at Park Springs by the management team.  Immediately, all staff jumped into action.  Checkpoints were established on either side of the building with Raymond Previto and Ginger Hansborough taking attendance of all Members living in the 1000 building.  The maintenance and security teams were on the radio discussing where the emergency was initiated.  Within minutes, the DeKalb County Fire Department was on site, and initiated a sweep of the building to ensure all Members were clear of any danger.

Upon completion of the drill, the “All Clear” signal was issued, and all Members returned to their units.  Each member was accounted for by utilization of attendance logs, member away logs, assistance logs, and the buddy system, in order to locate any member not physically accounted for.

This was a great learning experience for all teams involved.  It gave our senior housing in Atlanta practice on how to handle an emergency.  The Fire Department gained valuable knowledge of our campus, systems, and buildings.  Furthermore, through great communication and teamwork, both DeKalb County Fire Department, and Park Springs will adjust our procedures to get even better in our response to such emergencies.

We will utilize our lessons learned for our next drill which will occur in the spring when the weather is a little warmer.  In the future, we will continue to work together to conduct additional drills in order to ensure that all Members, employees, and the fire department will know the absolute best way to handle any emergency.