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Home > News > 9/11 and Elevator Safety
9/11 and Elevator Safety - 2010-6-6

James Fortune, an elevator consultant and president of Fortune Consultants, says the way we employ elevators is changing due to 9/11. “Many of the tallest buildings need to be constructed with areas of refuge every 20 floors,” he says. “During a fire they can go to that area and then wait for instructions. But after 9/11, in high rises, people don’t want to do that. They want to get out of the building. Looking at the World Trade Center after the fact, evacuating with stairs would take more than an hour for a 100-story building. Elevators have to be used.”

Maybe the biggest issue facing engineers now, Fortune says, is keeping smoke out of the elevator hoist raise. “All buildings built today are fully enclosed and air conditioned,” he says. “The codes still reflect having venting to outside air but the problem in a fully sealed building is it loses heating and AC if vents are opened. Designing sprinklers is still better than having any kind of vent in my opinion…Also, now elevators have self-evacuation capabilities so if you were in a high-rise building, you could now get the PA address to evacuate to normal elevators.”

More Elevators = Less Panic

Fortune says buildings need to be constructed with more cameras to make sure hoistways are safe. “That could be a part of making people in charge of strategy feel better about allowing elevators in,” he says. “We need more elevators working to avoid people panicking and all running at once. If you establish a safe plan that people know about, they’ll be more relaxed under pressure. The idea would also be to have them in a mode where they only go from the floor you’re on to the ground floor.” He notes this is particularly important for the physically challenged, who otherwise are taking the stairs.

Fortune believes an area that still needs to be adjusted is the area where firemen enter. This is based on an earlier experience with the twin towers. “I was in the World Trade Center in ‘93 when the bomb went off,” he says. “We had to walk down 36 floors, which took about 40 minutes. High-rise building stairwells are not supposed to build up with smoke but that’s what happened after the bomb blast and push. Now all the building codes are set up for all firemen to use the same stairwell then get to the sixth to eight floor in the opposite direction, telling people to get out of the way.” Fortune pauses at the thought then finishes, “How can they think plans like that are efficient enoug**”

Eric Butterman is an independent writer.

We need more elevators working to avoid people panicking and all running at once. If you establish a safe plan that people know about, they’ll be more relaxed under pressure. James Fortune, Fortune Consultants