the.com/fire drill
rehearsing catastrophe so calmly you forget to be scared when it's real.
means a practiced evacuation exercise that trains people to exit a building quickly and safely before an actual emergency ever happens.
from born from 19th-century factory and school disasters, most famously after fires like the 1908 collinwood school fire killed 172 people and forced institutions to legally mandate practice evacuations.
legal mandateus schools required by law to run several yearly
business slangnow means any urgent, often pointless, scramble
nfpa standardmost drills must clear a building in under 3 minutes
muscle memoryrepetition works because panic shuts down conscious thought
for instance
collinwood school fire — 1908 ohio tragedy that made drills compulsory nationwide
world trade center 1993 — survivors credited prior drills for orderly 1993 evacuation
japanese earthquake drills — schools nationwide practice combined fire and quake response yearly