It’s a Sign of the Times
In the last few years, Curtis Massey had been spreading a message of gloom and doom, traveling coast to coast making speeches about how terrorism had become a way of life in America.
Yet on Sept. 11, even Massey, a former Virginia firefighter who is now one of the world's leading disaster planning consultants, did not expect an attack of such magnitude. The event Massey has called "unimaginable" and "unbelievable" has made converts of those who had listened with skepticism or uncertainty to his sermons about the need for disaster "pre-planning" in high-rises.
One such believer is Gerard V. Schumm, vice president of operations for Trizec Properties Inc., a major real estate investment trust that owns the 39-story Newport Tower on Washington Boulevard in Jersey City.
About six months ago, with the events of Sept. 11 still seared in his brain, Massey met with Schumm to seriously discuss coming up with a preplan for Newport Tower. The plan has become one of the major enticements he offers prospective tenants.
"He came to me shortly after 9/11 and we sat down and that's when we said, 'This is was we have to do,' "Schumm said.
Newport Tower is the first Hudson County high-rise for which Massey has been contracted. It joins such notable skyscrapers as the John Hancock Center in Chicago, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, the Library Tower in Los Angeles and the Empire State Building.
A Massey disaster pre-plan consists of a detailed color- coded guide that helps firefighters and other emergency workers quickly grasp the layout and mechanical operations of high-rises.
Essentially, the pre-plan is a graphic synthesis of a building's insides, an emergency map of such things as elevator shafts, emergency stairwells and standpipe and sprinkler configurations. The plan saves emergency workers from having to rifle through complicated floor plans and engineering drawings at the moment of a fire or other disaster.
"Everything about the preplan is geared toward how the firefighter thinks," Massey said during a visit to Newport Tower on Wednesday. "We do not include such goofy things as where fire extinguishers are in a building— a firefighter doesn't need to know that."
The firefighter's perspective in each pre-plan Massey prepares is clearly one of the company's strongest selling points. As proof of this, Massey features a slew of testimonials praising his product on the company's Web site. One is from Ed Butler, deputy assistant fire chief for the New York City Fire Department.
"The Massey Disaster Plan is a very concise and complete document," Massey wrote. "Building managers, engineers, and fire safety directors should be thoroughly familiar with the plan's contents and thus be able to provide additional support to the Fire Department incident command post."
North Hudson Regional Fire & Rescue Co-Director Jeff Welz said this week that Massey's preplan is essentially an enhanced version of a "pre-fire plan," a method of familiarizing emergency workers in advance of a crisis with the layout of a specific high- rise. Since Sept.11, North Hudson emergency personnel have stepped up their efforts to become familiar with such buildings as the residential Galaxy Towers in Guttenberg, Welz said. "The last thing you want is to see a building for the first time when there's a fire," Welz said. "Building familiarization is critical. A lot of times what we do is come up with our own drawings of a building."
Welz said the task of becoming familiar with the insides of a high-rise is a manageable one for emergency workers in regions North Hudson, which has few tall buildings. But, he said, it's impossible in places like Manhattan, "where almost every building is a high-rise."
Bringing local firefighters up to speed with the pre-plan is part of the service Massey provides for each high-rise client. Local firefighters are provided with what Massey calls a "cheat- sheet," a summarized version of the pre-plan, contained in a folding plastic sleeve for easy accessibility during an emergency.
Though Massey's pre-plan is geared toward firefighters, almost anyone can understand its graphic scheme. Schumm, standing near the Newport Tower's second-floor lounge, flipped through a pre-plan Massey had prepared for one of several New York City high-rises.
"I've never been in this particular building," Schuinm said as he leafed through the binder, stopping at an elevator diagram. "But just from looking at this I know what elevators go to which floors, where the emergency exits are."
Schumm called the pre-plan one of the most important things he can offer his tenants at Newport Tower.
James F. Shanahan, Newport Tower's building manager, said that after Sept.11, such disaster planning is almost expected.
"I have tenants say to me, 'What happens if a plane hits our building and we go up to the roof? Will you provide us with parachutes or rope ladders?' "Shanahan said. "This pre-plan is a way to show our tenants that we're going the extra step."
These are not empty words, according to Josh Hadden, director of engineering for Clear Channel Radio's New York City operations, a tenant of Newport Tower. Hadden oversees several Clear Channel radio stations in New York City and Jersey City high-rises, and he said that Trizec's disaster planning efforts are "ahead of the curve."
"It's the best building I've been in," Hadden said. "This kind like of pre-planning means everything. If anybody has learned anything from Sept. 11, it's that it's all about pre-planning."
Other building mangers, said Hadden, conduct fire drills on a regular basis, "but they don't have this level of planning."
Martin Espinoza can be reached at mespinoz@jjournal.com.