St. Mary School Upgrades Fire Alarm System

It is with great pleasure to report that after several years of plans and designs
being discussed with contractors, the Milford Fire Department and the Milford
Building Inspector, and after several months of work in the building, St. Mary
School started the school year with a new, updated Fire Alarm system.

We thank the Archdiocese of Hartford which had to grant the financial approval,
our deceased Pastor Father Cronin, and present Pastor Father Donahue, for their
approval, the Parish of St. Mary which underwrote the costs of the project, the
Milford Fire Department who worked with us to be sure we had a safe, reliable
system at an acceptable cost, the Milford Building Department which approved
the plans and work needed, the Parish and School Maintenance Committees, Mark
Krom of Harborview Electric who handled the operation, and our own staff for
putting up with all the work, dust, noise, etc..

Although the Fire Department knew that the old system was operational and that in the case of any emergency it would operate to get all occupants out of the building in a very short amount of time, we now have a brand new system which we know will work well into the future; one that has more smoke detectors, pull
stations handicapped accessible, visual as well as audio alarms, and a better
system for electronically notifying the Fire Department of any potential problem.

We received official notification of compliance from the Milford Fire Department
at the end of August after they successfully conducted a full test of the system.  We ran our first Fire Alarm Drill with the students shortly after, at which time we were able to efficiently evacuate over 220 children and 20 adults from the building in 65 seconds. Yes, as some of our children will tell you, it was loud – but that only proves the efficiency of the system!