Wimpy staff lock in customers during emergency

On Sunday, 2 Feb I was sitting in the Wimpy at Soneike (Brackenfell) when the alarm went off in the centre. While about 12 of us inside the restaurant looked around wondering if this was a false alarm or not, I was then horrified to see one of the staff (Yolanda) closing the doors, to effectively trap us all inside!

The staff were in a state of confusion, with other of the staff pushing the door open to get out and Yolanda demanding the door be closed, as if we were going to be safer trapped inside. I shouted to her to open the door, but she was too excited to hear anything.

With the other customers in the restaurant, I managed to get outside, but there was no obvious sign of any danger; and after about 10min it was declared a false alarm ... and we all went back inside. Immediately prior to the alarm, the power was off due to load-shedding; and apparently, the alarm was mistakenly triggered when the power came back on. That's all very plausible, but the alarm that sounded included an (obviously automated) announcement, saying: "This is not a drill. This is not a drill". No, it wasn't a drill, but the apparent seriousness of the announcement, caused a lot of unnecessary inconvenience.

The centre management (who were not on site) need to look into the consequences of a real emergency; and Wimpy has been caught out by *********** staff, who obviously haven't been trained and don't have a clue what to do in an emergency.