Disaster Preparedness Builds on Critical Triangle
How much has actually changed in the real estate community since 9/11 in regards to emergency preparedness? The answer, shockingly enough, is very little. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on security measures, from barriers to x-ray machines to turn styles to card readers to cameras to extra guards. The one thing all these items have in common is that they are preventive measures. Yet, what happens if a disaster in your building happens anyway, despite all the attempts to prevent it? Or, what if a terrorist attack occurs in the building next door and, in a cascading effect, impacts all the buildings surrounding the target building, including yours? Or, what if an entire CBD is affected by a major event which impacts every building in the downtown core? All the security layers put into place go right out the window and in some cases, may even compound the situation (such as turn styles inhibiting the flow of occupants during a rapid, full building evacuation). Are American and Canadian cities truly prepared for the next terrorist attack? And it will come. I believe the answer is clearly no. A mind-numbing amount of money has been spent on trying to prevent an attack, yet very, very little has been spent on reacting to one.
The “Critical Triangle”
Diagram Critical Triangle
How many buildings have performed advanced, technical staff training for all their engineering, security and management personnel, so they are fully trained in how to deal with a large-scale emergency both within and from outside their buildings? Are they trained in how to properly respond to any emergency (not just terrorism), what to do and what not to do prior to the arrival of emergency responders and how to work with those people once they are on scene? I’ve found few buildings that even have one person on staff that can handle his or herself under pressure while operating a microphone during a P.A. announcement. Its not as easy as you think and is akin to public speaking, which few people can do effectively when there is no emergency unfolding around them. Are the building’s fire wardens properly trained in emergency response procedures and how to orchestrate partial and full-scale building evacuations? Are they trained in what to do if they are trapped on their floors or in their work spaces and where alternate air sources exist if traditional sources are eliminated? Are drills conducted at least once a year, to test everyone in their performance in carrying out their specified assignments? All training classes for both the staff and the tenants should be taught by someone with an emergency services background, preferably the fire service, since they have the most experience in dealing with all types of emergencies. There is simply too much to know about various threats (especially fire) for a security guard, manager or engineer to be teaching classes in an area in which they have no background in. Also, does the building have an emergency resource fire department “pre-plan” on site that will assist the first-due fire chief incident commander in gaining a rapid, yet thorough assessment of the building and its systems upon arrival? This should not be confused with the building’s evacuation/life safety plan which is for the building occupants, not the firefighters. In order for the fire department to quickly and effectively bring an emergency under control, they need a Disaster Plan that is strictly dedicated to their use only. The “pre-plan” should contain information that is pertinent to their needs. No information regarding the evacuation guidelines, security measures, tenant procedures or staff procedures should be in this plan. This data is irrelevant to the fire chief’s viewpoint and should be kept in a completely separate document — the life safety plan. The chief is under too much pressure and has too little time to concentrate on anything except the basics — how to get around, how to cut things off and how to interface with the building systems. The plan (see graphics spread 1 ‑ 6) should only contain floor plans (every floor, top-to-bottom), riser diagrams, a structural diagram, a site plan, a collapse rescue grid and text (brief and to the point) on all building systems, utilities, hazardous materials and firefighting tactical concerns that are specific to that property. That’s it. The chief will not care about the duties and responsibilities of the people in the building, only if they are safe or not. If they are not, he or she will deal with it. That’s where extra floor plans for the firefighters going up into the building come in. Every property should have at least 2 extra sets of floor plans, on top of the one set for the incident commander in the lobby — one set for each stairwell (evacuation and fire attack stairwell teams). The plans should only show information that is important to firefighters (see graphic 7) and everything else left off, including pull stations, fire extinguisher locations, etc. which is unimportant to the responders going up into the building. The three tallest buildings in Canada have adopted a program of this nature. This decision was strictly voluntary, as no city specifically requires a pre-plan of this type for emergency responders as of yet. The owner/operators (O & Y, Bank of Nova Scotia and GWL Realty Advisors) chose to exceed code, not just meet it, and make these skyscrapers as safe as any building in Canada to occupy. Fire/police personnel will simply perform at a much higher level when they don’t have to make crucial life and death decisions based on guesswork when mitigating emergencies in these tall buildings containing thousands of people.
These three areas of concern (staff training, tenant training and F.D. resource Disaster Plans) comprise what I commonly refer to as the “Critical Triangle” (graphic 8). These three elements of a building’s disaster preparedness program are what will truly make-or-break the outcome of a significant emergency once it begins to unfold. Everything else is secondary in comparison. The most important point about this is that you are far, far more likely to experience a fire in your building than a terrorist attack and that is where all emergency planning should evolve from. Those plans and procedures will, in turn, play out to cover all other types of fire department related emergencies, including terrorism. Remember that the Disaster Plan can be utilized by police SWAT Teams as well on hostage or mass-shooting incidents, since much the same information they require will be in the plan (access/egress points, floor layouts, internal stairwells, etc.). Versatility is the key.
Note: Every building should always store an extra set of drawings off-site, just in case the plans in the building have been destroyed or are inaccessible. Emergency personnel will desperately require at least some building data. Also, always have primary and secondary evacuation points pre-designated for building occupants: one place to collect while the incident is being investigated or controlled and another location to collect if the building has to experience a complete evacuation due to a full-blown emergency. Getting the occupants away from danger and out of the way of firefighters/police is extremely important. A back-up secondary evacuation point should be decided upon in the opposite direction, in case the first collection point is downwind of smoke or a toxic agent emanating from the building (or nearby building). People may choose to disregard the plan and strike out on their own, but that would be their decision to make and could prove costly.
Canadian High-Rises
The majority of multi-story buildings in Canada have their standpipe outlets located outside the stairwells in hose cabinets. The obvious reasoning behind this is for the fire department to be able to attach their hose lines and attack the fire without compromising the exit stairwells with the fleeing occupants inside. This same concept has been applied in some U.S. buildings as well, but on a much smaller scale. Although the reasoning behind this concept is valid, there is one major drawback to this theory. If there is a serious “working fire” on a given floor, then the firefighters would be taking a tremendous risk in attaching their hoses on the fire floor. If their hose bursts (which does happen more frequently than you think), flashover occurs (when an entire room or area erupts in flames instantaneously), or the ceiling falls on the crew with fire above, the chances of them finding their way back to the nearest stairwell quickly in dense smoke conditions is reduced dramatically. Their “life line” — the hose — does not lead them back to the stairs, but to a hose cabinet on a blank wall. Their next decision, whether to go left or right to find the stairs, may cost them their lives if they choose the wrong way. Keep in mind that the crew that attached the hose will be rotated off the floor if the fire is not controlled within 10 ‑ 15 minutes, due to exhaustion. The next crew will not have the same sense of familiarization as to where the exit is. So, if the fire is of any significance (or smoke is too thick to even find the nearest hose cabinet), they have to connect on the floor below and bring their hose up the stairs to the fire floor and then advance outward from there. Now you will have two stairwell doors propped open (to protect the hose). Smoke migration into the stairs will most likely occur, just as in U.S. high-rise fires where standpipe outlets are commonly in the stairwells. However, firefighter safety is paramount to anything else. The point is, a serious fire will most likely result in stairwell contamination of at least one stair shaft (see graphic 9).
Disaster Preparedness on a Broader Scale: Terrorism
There are many fallacies and flaws in most cities’ “Master Disaster Plans” as they relate to terrorism. The most common flaw is the dependence on mass transit and POVs (privately owned vehicles) to accomplish an inner-city mass evacuation in the event of a WMD (weapon of mass destruction) attack. Also, banking on the infrastructure (power, water, gas, communications) to remain intact. That’s another major error. The third is depending on the local Fire Department, Police Department and EMS (medics) to be capable of handling the situation with little to no help from outside agencies. That is the most significant error of all. Contrary to “the best laid plans” that protect our major cities in North America, here’s what is most likely going to happen when, not if, the next attack occurs. If it is a significant mass-casualty event, panic and chaos will ensue; mass transportation will be lost (no one making $10 an hour with a family at home is going to drive a train or bus towards a major catastrophe to rescue you and your tenants … or it can be damaged or destroyed during the attack); gridlock will quickly occur with people attempting to drive out of the CBD, disregarding traffic signals with the associated accidents, abandoning vehicles, etc.; the local emergency responders will be rapidly overwhelmed and will begin calling for mutual-aid from all surrounding cities to respond and assist. If the event involves a large explosion or building collapse, then utilities buried below the streets will likely be compromised — there will be a loss of firefighting water supply, a loss of power (forcing fire personnel to acquire large numbers of portable generators for lighting, etc.), a loss of land-line telephone (and probably cell phone, due to system overload or loss of equipment) communications capability necessary for coordinating all the agencies involved with the event and their respective functions, as well as severed gas lines creating secondary ignition and explosion hazards. Everything that can go wrong probably will. It did at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Remember that only a fire department the size of New York could have dealt with an event of that scale. The next largest fire department in the U.S., for instance, is 1/3 the size of the FDNY. Even then, mutual-aid came from cities near and far, as they were a little overwhelmed during the first day.
Solutions
Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Create contingency plans for the “worst case scenario.” Mass evacuation from a CBD chemical or “dirty bomb” attack may not be a wise thing to do if you are going to be forced to leave the city on foot, which will likely be the case. Consider working with the local authorities in designating large assembly buildings such as schools and universities, convention centers, concert halls and enclosed malls and sporting facilities as temporary evacuation sites until the most immediate threat passes. Communicate these plans to your tenants, so they are aware that a controlled evacuation to specified sites may vastly increase their chances of survival. Emergency responders should form mutual-aid pacts with jurisdictions up to at least 40 miles away. Pre-designated secondary command posts and staging areas for responding equipment/manpower should be decided on, so resources can be pulled as needed. This way, “Ground Zero” is not flooded with personnel with no assignments and no ability to track them. Too many emergency responders can actually be a bad thing and hamper the command and control of the scene. Coordinate with the local utility companies as to what their plans are to rapidly re-establish at least temporary phone, water and electrical service to the disaster site and then the adjacent area (this pays dividends for everyone, including your buildings — especially in the middle of winter or summer). Note that you will most likely not be allowed access to your buildings for at least the first few days after the event. Assign one person, maybe the BOMA President, to act as a spokesperson for the local real estate industry in the capacity of a liaison officer with the Emergency Incident Command Post PIO (Public Information Officer) in offering vital data on your buildings, in addition to carrying crucial information concerning the crises back to you and your tenants. This will also allow you to convey your needs and concerns that are of a high priority to the incident commanders, as they primarily will only be focused on dealing with the disaster during the initial stages. They will not be thinking about your buildings being shut down and unmanned for possibly days on end. The financial repercussions of the disaster will not be a vital concern to them at first, only incident control and life safety issues. Yet, if you can get at least your engineers cleared through the security perimeter to secure their buildings (in “safe zones,” of course) and monitor basic functions that may exist, this can dramatically affect your losses. Create communication links with both your tenant reps and managers of surrounding buildings to reassemble at pre-designated locations in suburban settings after evacuation is accomplished (high school parking lots), in order to determine accurate head counts and courses of action necessary to recover from the catastrophe. Al Qaeda spent years planning the attacks of Sept. 11, so remember these are very patient people who wish to inflict tremendous losses on us who embrace freedom. An article I wrote for this very same magazine five years ago predicted that there would soon be a major-scale terrorist attack and that the threat of terrorism would become a way of life for us all. This was actually common knowledge within the fire and police services. We didn’t know when, where and how bad, just that it was going to happen. Admittedly, the attacks of 9/11 were even worse than we had imagined. The next one may be even worse than that. Terrorism will not go away in our lifetime. Recent military victories are already beginning to breed complacency which can cause us to drop our guard once again. This cannot happen. The key to survival is emergency training and pre-planning. A successful reaction to a major event and a rapid recovery from its effects surely depends upon it. Embracing the concept of emergency preparedness and the components of the “Critical Triangle” offer us hope for an uncertain future. There have been 3 major terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in the last 10 years, with counting all the strikes of 9/11 as one incident. There have been attempted terrorist attacks in several European countries in the last year alone that were luckily thwarted through good intelligence and these are only the ones we know about. The clock may be ticking on Canada. No one is immune to the threat. Consider what SARS did and that was an unintentional biological release. It is far better to be proactive than reactive. Remember the saying, “If we cannot learn from history, then we are damned to repeat it.”
Curtis Massey is a former 20 year veteran of the fire service and currently owns and operates Massey Enterprises, the world’s leading disaster planning firm. Massey Disaster Plans protect the majority of the highest profile buildings in North America. He and his personnel assisted authorities with the search & rescue operation at the WorldTradeCenter incident from Sept. 11 through Sept. 21, 2001. He is also the author of the article “10 Days at Ground Zero.”