The Real Facts About Emergency Preparedness in High-Rise Commercial Buildings
Most real estate ownership and management companies feel confident that their assets are well protected and prepared for virtually any significant emergency that might unfold in the buildings. They feel certain that if they meet code, get inspected annually by the local fire department, possess a life safety/evacuation plan that has been approved by the fire department, perform annual fire drills and tenant training, run the emergency generator once or twice a year to ensure it will crank up in a power outage, then their bases must be adequately covered. The following are a few “myths” and “facts” about the topic of disaster preparedness.
Myth - Meeting fire/life safety codes is adequate in prepping a building for a serious emergency and having the fire department inspect your building annually ensures your building is “up to snuff” and fully code compliant.
Fact - Codes are actually considered within the fire service as the “bare minimum” and are nowhere near as stringent as they really should be to cover all of the life safety issues that might arise during a “working incident.” If you took five fire inspectors and had them all tour the same building, they would each see things (or miss things) that would vary widely when put into a report. There are good and bad fire inspectors who have varying degrees of thoroughness and dedication. They are also over-worked and underpaid with an ever-increasing workload, which forces them to spend less time in each building than they really should. Things are missed, especially relative to proprietary tenant systems and more importantly, codes have clearly not caught up to all the new-age technology being introduced into commercial buildings which will impact fire department operations and tenant safety during an emergency.
Myth - If power is lost to the building or the local grid, then the emergency generator in buildings that have them will crank up and provide dependable power to all basic life safety systems (i.e. - one elevator per bank, emergency lighting, stair pressurization fans, smoke removal system, alarm and PA system, stair door unlocks, fire pump, etc.)
Fact - Properly maintained and tested emergency generators are actually in the minority, not the majority. Due to the inconvenience, effort involved and conflicts with tenants that require constant power but do not possess their own internal power source, many generators are simply started and run but are not put under a full load to ensure they will meet the true demands during an emergency. Over 80% of the generators in the New York City region dialed during the major blackout a few years ago due to lack of maintenance, testing and aged, jelled fuel in day tanks that had not been changed in years.
Myth - I have a fully sprinklered high-rise office building, thus I cannot possibly experience a serious fire.
Fact - There is no such thing as a “fully sprinklered high-rise office building.” There are always unsprinklered void spaces where fire can travel unchecked (i.e. - curtain wall voids, partition wall voids, plenum wall voids above false ceilings and even certain areas of the core in many buildings have unsprinklered space, such as janitor lockers and utility closets). Also, many fires break out after hours on floors undergoing renovation, when fire systems are turned off and isolated, involving bulk storage of construction materials. Serious fires can occur and have happened in these sprinklered buildings. Remember that the former World Trade Center as “fully sprinklered.
The truth is, most fire departments do not have proper training and necessary exposure to many of the new-age systems and building features going in new or renovated high-rises. Tenant UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems featuring battery rooms, emergency generators and primary (sometimes secondary as well) power feeds to their critical systems are not well understood by your first responders. These key items of interest should already be addressed in the building’s re-fire/emergency contingency plan for the first responders. Technology has passed the fire service in recent years and a struggle now ensues as to how to go about bringing them up to speed with understanding these changes and how they will affect the outcome of a fire or other event requiring their response and intervention. Lives and valuable property lie in the balance.
Hopefully this article clears up many of the misconceptions you might have had regarding fire/life safety issues and how well you really are (or are not) prepared for a serious emergency in your building(s). Fighting high-rise fires has never been more challenging and dangerous than it is today in many respects, given the rapid progression of technology that seriously compromises their ability to manage an emergency. Reassessing your building’s preparedness programs from one end of the spectrum to the other and taking the necessary steps to address the things discussed here to properly protect the asset, the people who occupy it and the first responders who are willing to risk their lives to operate in it, will pay dividends on the day of “the big one”.