Never Say Never

In a recent post titled “Signs the Good and the Bad” I showed a picture of an exit sign pointing to an elevator bank.  My point was that this sign placement was an absolute and very dangerous mistake.  As an EH&S professional for the last 25 years I have been taught and reminded numerous times that elevators should never ever be used in a fire evacuation situation.  I have stressed this rule in every employee emergency evacuation training session that I conducted.  Now however, and much to my surprise, that absolute safety rule may soon be changing.

When I wrote the Signs post I did not even think about doing research on this point as the “no use” rule has always been an absolute in fire safety circles.  We have all learned about incidents where an elevator, filled with people trying to exit from a burning building, has opened unexpectedly onto the floor where the fire was raging.  The opened doors then typically cannot close because the electric eye system is tripped by smoke.  That system is installed in elevator doors so that no one will be crushed between the heavy doors when they automatically close.  Unfortunately because the door opening system saw the smoke as someone standing in the doorway it kept the doors open and lead to the death or serious injury of the elevator occupants.  There were other incidents where firefighters taking an elevator up to what was thought to be just below the fire floor found themselves on a fire floor as the doors opened.

Thus, in 1973 after a series of such incidents a formal policy was adopted that barred occupant elevator use in fire emergencies.  This policy is currently adopted into building codes applied around the world.  In brief summary it states that all elevators must be programmed to return to the lobby, or a designated stopping floor, when a fire alarm is activated.  Later versions of this policy allows for firefighter override so that they can use the elevator to transport firefighters and equipment to a floor below the actual fire area.

Digging deeper it seems that the disaster at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 started the experts re-thinking elevator use in emergencies.  In studying what happened in that terrorist strike it was found that the occupants of the second tower used elevators to evacuate after seeing what was happening across the way.  Most of the inhabitants were able to exit before the second plane struck that structure.  Experts explain that many more would have died had the occupants exited through the stairways as it is definitely a slower way to exit. Another study, by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, indicated that there were more people in the buildings who could not use the stairways than originally thought.  In addition to the number of people projected to need assistance (as would be calculated in the American’s With Disabilities Act, ADA, there were a significant number of people with temporary leg impairments, pregnant women and others with conditions that precluded them from walking down what could have been hundreds of flights of stairs.  Sometimes it is the obvious that takes longer to understand.  When you think about it, we design structures for all to get in easily and efficiently but under current rules if you have to get out in an emergency situation and you are impaired to some degree the exit could be problematic.  An exit strategy that I have used in the past was to situate a stair chair in the stairway where a wheelchair bound individual was located and then to assign Medical Emergency Team Members to assist in the evacuation.  I must admit that this approach was only good for those who voluntarily self declared there need for assistance.  It did not anticipate all of the other temporarily impaired individuals who would also need help in exiting.

After years of analysis and study things might become very different in future high rise evacuation routines.  NOT NOW in most buildings, but over time new paradigms are being formulated that will re-direct our approach to evacuation procedures.  The New York Times published an article on March 19, 2015 that outlined this new thinking.  In fact, it is more than thinking.  The New York City Building Code is drafting changes to allow for building Occupant-Evacuation Elevators.  The Times article stated that occupant-evacuation elevators would have very different design requirements than those currently built.  One change would be the walls of the elevator shaft would need to be a minimum of 18 inches thick of reinforced concrete. Elevator doors would be slightly elevated from floor level so water from sprinklers would not run down the shaft.  Also elevator lobbies will have to be more fireproof than they are today so that people have a safe place to wait for the elevator to arrive.

How much of a problem are we worried about here?  In general buildings are getting taller and taller.  The NFPA National Fire Incident Reporting System estimates that annually there are 15,500 high rise structure fires that will cause 60 civilian deaths, 930 injuries and hundreds of millions of dollars in property loss.  Yes it is a problem worth addressing.

What is most worrisome to me as I get re-engaged in evacuation planning strategies is the people side of the equation.  I think that we will be able to solve the physical aspects of elevator evacuation.  Fireproofed elevator shafts, redesigned hoistways that will not act as chimneys, electrical systems that will stay up during an emergency to power these conveyances and fire safe elevator lobbies to keep people safe while waiting for the car to come are all doable construction approaches that are known and can be designed into new construction.  But how to design for people who are anxious, under stress and scared is yet another thing to consider.

First to consider is who shall be responsible to operate the occupant evacuation elevator during the emergency.  I would imagine it to be a specially trained member of the building emergency response team.  My educated guess would be that this person would take over operation of the elevator much like a firefighter does by using special override keying that puts control of the elevator in the operator’s hands.  How would that person be able to do crowd control as people tried to enter the elevator when it arrived?  Who would decide what floor the occupant evacuation elevator would be sent to?  Should elevator evacuation priorities be assigned?  Will that designated elevator operator return with the elevator into harms way to continue the evacuation or will a firefighter be required to take over?  Will the fire department share the use of the elevator or commandeer one for their own use?  Most importantly though is how will we get people to change their whole way of thinking after 42 years of being told NEVER take an elevator in a fire?

We will definitely need to take a holistic approach to the evacuation process.  When flight is the instinct that kicks in during an emergency the idea of keeping on the move, as in rushing down a secure stairway, would satisfy the mental state.  Waiting for an elevator in a fireproofed lobby, even if only for a short time, might greatly increase anxiety and lead to unwanted outcomes.  This fact is before us: we do need to do better in getting people, all people, out of harms way faster and more efficiently that we do today.  But I do believe we still have much work to do before elevators are commonly thought of as the first means of egress in an emergency situation.

I have learned yet again the proverb NEVER SAY NEVER is alive and well.