It was 11:00 p.m. on the night of Purple and White. After two hours of waiting in line, through torrential rain and bitter cold, the last of the ticketholders were finally shuffling into the homecoming dance at Seattle Center’s Exhibition Hall. They passed through security and emerged on the dance floor, their frozen limbs slowly beginning to thaw.

And that’s when the fire alarm went off.

Due to a lack of flames, smoke, and screaming people, it was immediately evident that there was no real fire. The actual cause of the alarm was less clear. Some students blamed an intoxicated prankster. Others suggested that a parent chaperone had pulled it because, in the words of junior Eli Rumpf, “It was ‘too hot in herrrre.’” However, everyone agreed on one thing: the situation was exasperating.

“The fire alarm went off for like half an hour,” said junior Amanda Montoya, “And that was OK, because they played the music over it… but then they turned the music off. And they turned the lights on. And they were like, ‘Get out!’ and we were like, ‘No!’”

As the adults debated whether to clear the building, students milled about in confusion. “I definitely walked, like, 75% of the way to the door, and then back, and then 50% of the way to the door, and then back, and then 25% of the way to the door, and then back,” Montoya said. “Finally I just sat on the ground and waited.”

Eventually, the noise stopped, the room went dark, and the dance started up again. But the false alarm was merely the crowning incident in a night full of mishaps. Conflicting information about the start time led some students to show up thirty minutes early. Then, in an entirely un-super move, DJ Super Dave crashed his car en route to the venue. His substitute arrived twenty minutes late, extending the wait time for admission. As a result, some people didn’t get in until the dance was halfway over. Junior Henton Hailey-Marshall said he entered at “about 10:30. But I was in line about 8:40-something.”

More problems cropped up toward the end of the night. When students went to reclaim their coats from the coat check, they discovered that their belongings had been heaped together on a table, not placed on hangers. “The women took fifteen minutes trying to find my coat, and then they were like, ‘We give up, go get it,’” said Keejaa Ramgotra. “They were so not organized.” A massive line formed as people attempted to dig out their own garments.

Next to the line, two girls began clawing at each other. Later, the girl that initiated the physical fight said she had been heckled all night. A mob of onlookers encircled them; though a chaperone soon broke them up, the disturbance didn’t make the line go any faster.

Rivaling the drama of the fire alarm, one girl collapsed as she headed to the exit. A former Garfield student, she had overdosed on something rumored to be bipolar medication. Her parents requested that an aid car pick her up. The last image many attendees had of the dance was her body being carried out on a stretcher.

Despite the chaos, Peggy Jackson-Williams described the event as “wonderful.”

“Our kids are doing an excellent job,” she elaborated. “We didn’t have any of our kids that were under the influence. None of the Garfield kids were in the time-out room… Those were guests that were brought to our dance by our students.”

The person responsible for the alarm, she said, was one of those guests. “The fire alarm was pulled by the boyfriend of a [Garfield] girl, who was in the timeout room,” she explained. “The guy was busted while throwing things – he was under the influence. He goes into the room mad, and he snatches on the fire alarm, I guess to say, ‘If I’m not having a good time, no one will.’”

In order to avoid a repeat of this situation, Jackson-Williams and the student government are planning to revise the guest policy. “[The new policy] could be limiting everyone to one guest,” she said. “It could be getting permission from that school’s principal, allowing that kid to come, making sure they’re in good standing. It could be taking their driver’s license or ID card when they walk in the dance, so that we know that information.”

Unlike Jackson-Williams, teacher chaperone Joseph Swarner said he found some parts of the dance “disappointing.” He also pointed out that the problems weren’t necessarily unusual. “I’d like to say that it’s atypical, but at the same time, the police officer who was there said that this is not something that doesn’t happen at other schools’ dances,” he explained. “Overall, it was a pretty run-of-the-mill Friday night. I don’t think there was a lack of planning or togetherness.”

For Rumpf, the good behavior of his classmates and the relative normalcy of the situation still didn’t make his experience any better. “It was the worst dance that I’ve been to,” he said.