Hi Robert,
See current Oct. 2001 issue of "The Activist" newsletter from Disabled
In Action of Metropolitan New York.
Stories about maybe 3 people with severe mobility disabilites, sesm to
have been repeated in various newspaper articles, such as New York
Times, Newsday, etc. Not sure of this the ultimate in "innocent
victim" idea, or if these were intended as pity stories. In one,
helpers lost life, which I suppose could be used against us ....
After the truck bomb driven into the basement garage of the World Trade
Center in 1993, an independent researcher (was "risk manager" for a
hospital) interviewed every PWD who received any special assistance from
firefighters to get out. This was published in "Fire Engineering"
magazine (USA) 1994? by a Ms. Julliet. She has done independent
researcxh on this, back to the 70's. In 1973 it took really all day to
evacuate the whole WTC, which makes it particularly galling that on
9-11-01, poeple in the South Tower who had begun to evacuate based on
knowing from radios or looking out windows, what was happening in the
North Tower first, were told over the fire safety PA system, to return
to their desks and that only the other building needed evacuation. So
implementation of the evacuation plan was delayed until plane hit that
south tower.
People didn't wait, they went down the stairs as fast as they could. The
WTC towers reportedly had some bad design in which some ? fire stairs
only go down so far, then you're back out on the main floor, looking for
another staircase to continue going down.
At the Universal Design conference I spoke at in last week in NYC at
F.I.T./S.U.N.Y , they added to the schedule an evening informal
discussion of the fire sfety in buildings problem as it pertains to PWD
lifesaving. An AB architerct & fire expert from Ireland said that the
European Union's about 2 years away from having PWD's clearly in the
standards for building evacuation plans, which are otherwise /
previously sometimes regulated by countries, or big municipalities. In
a fast moving discussion of an hour, in which we had several other
facets of the subject to get to, it was not clear what the research or
PWD building users consultation was like if any, on that.
Word is there may be breathrough on this in US in a few years, perhaps
at federal level now that WTC attack has shaken things up. Several
disability-related orgs are talking together under umbrella of N.O.D.
about what to seek in this area. I don't know if activist orgs were
invited, but at least one such org is, now.
Also architects and engineers are to independently develop their
reccomendations... to I guess try to have influence on code reforms.
(Of course nothing in terms of strengthinening either design codes or
evacuation plan standards, would deal fully with an attack of this
particular type, on a very tall building, with a 737 used as a jet-fuel
bomb.) Possibilities thrown out to be discussed, include a separate
firefighter stair in tall buildings (so then they wouldn't encounter us
in the stairs as they go up?), and a new type of elevator (there are a
few of these in Europe? or just in testing phase?) that CAN be used by
building occupants in a fire. Of course thes new design features if
required by a new law (there really are few federal building codes for
most building types in the US outside of, if you count the accessess
guidelines of the ADA) would be probably only for new construction, and
the real estate lobby (the biggest NYC lobby & one of fhe biggest,
nationally) will shoot down anything that costs significant money,
especially in a Republican presidential administration.
FEMA, Federal Emergency management Administration's Fire Administration,
has a 1995 free booklet on PWD evacuation in fires in office buildings.
See their web site. www.fema.us.gov
The architect researching and lobbying this in coordination with the EU
was very negative on building design standards improvements, placing
most of his eggs in the evacuation plan (inculding PWD's) improvement
basket. I asked who would have responsibility to help in a new
standard, and he said it would all remain 100% with firefighters; no
role for organizing occupants to help PWD coworkers. On the other hand,
Anne Emerman, former director of the Mayor's Office for People with
Disabilites ('89-93) & longtime activist and current DIsabled In Action
of Metropolitan New York - Vice President, tells me exactly the
opposite, that as a practical matter your coworkers know you, care about
you, are right there, and if a mobility disabled person is helped out
in a tall building, they'll be the ones to do it.
I asked if a variation of the "Tot FInder" plan could be used (used in
US, do outher countries do this?); a residential thing with stickers on
bedroom windows of small cheldren to notify firefighters of their
locations. I was not asking specifically about using stickers, but more
generally asking about collecting info about where people who may need
assistance work in a building, and presenting it in an orderly way ahead
of time to fire depts. I was told that in US, they already do this, but
the info is held only by the nearest fire house. But if the
firefighters getting there first are from some other firehouse, then
they won't have that information at their fingertips. If this is any
indication of the level of beaurocratic competence being brought to bear
on fire evacuation planning, then we're all in trouble.
Some of the people who got out 9-11-01 had taken 75 minutes to run down
the hundred-plus flights of fire stairs. And barely made it out;
showing that buildings just should not be that tall. Most super tall
buildings have the most trouble renting out the upper flors, beause on
an everyday basis people don't want the extra waiting time and travel
time to get up there in elevators. (The utterly fabulous art deco top
floors of the Chrysler Building in NYC, were vacant for years in the
70's.) Perhaps workers will shy away from companies above the 50th
floor, and then companies will shy away from renting above the 50th
floor, and then perhaps developers will take a hint that they shouldn't
build over 50 stories. (I personally don't like to be in anything over
17-20 stories., which is a height for which apparently elevators work
out economically.)
---
The first general revision of ADA, the (building) Access Guidelines of
the ADA, finished their Public Comment period May 15, 2000. The Clinton
administration took no action before leaving office in Jan 2001. Bush
has taken no action that I know of. Since most of the revisions (but
not all) are slight improvements, one would expect a Republican
politican to be against it. I heard last Thurs. night that there is
something inteh proposed revision about fire safety, but can't say what.
On the New York State level, all of New York State outside of New York
City, has a statewide building code. Republican Governor George Pataki
is now forcing a revision that disabled rights people are opposing, to
adopt a so-called "model" code, the IBC, international building code.
Not only will this reduce the number of accessible-adaptab;e apartment
units getting built in the State by 20,000 per year, (beause in elevr
buildy 2% will havew to be that way, versus the current rule's saying
100%).
This code revision ALSO reduces FIRE PROTECTION standards, and
firefighter orgs. are opposing it. It will be approved at a Codes
Commission meeting next week, and go into effect in January, unless we
pass a bill to turn this around in the conservative
Republican-controlled State Senate.
--
Back to.... improving inthe next few years, legal standards for
including people with disabilites survivel, in mandated fire-evacuation
plans in workplaces & bigger buildings:
Regardless of what they did or didn't do in the European Union case, in
the US we need to have:
1.) openness in planning of new policies (all info easy to get)
2.) openness to the input of any PWD who has something they want to
contribute (not just for "leaders" with connections or
disability-related-service / charity -orgs.)
3.) such input processes - conducted by people who fully respect people
with disabilies. From what admittedly fast info I heard about the EU
case, I was not reassured that all of those things have newccessarily
been fully the case in how they are going about it. If anyone ON THIS
LISTSERV can enlighten me on this question of EU research into PWD
evacuttions, and how much they're listening to us.... , please write to
me directly. (Also I saw a slide of a Hq. building they built with
stair entry, and a very very steep "ramp" next to it.)
---
In NYC accessible transit basically means busses.
Subways are under a court settlement in which they add elevator
accessibility (another setails; the horizontal and sometimes also
vertaical "gap" to the train from the platform being another problem),
if they're doing a total renovation of a sttion. At this rate it may
take 300-500-1000 years to make an accessible system, nobody knows. I
don't have the figure handy, but it's less than 5% of stations are
elevator equipped.
One of those elevator-accessible stations was the 8th Avenue (West
side) "E' & "F" lines station at the World Trade Center, NOW DESTROYED /
closed for probably years to come. (Also the "P.A.T.H." = "Port
Authority Trans Hudson" train, a separate small subway-like system
linking before, 6, and now just 5 places in NYC, with several stops in
New Jersey across the river, like Jersey City & Newark, had one of it's
accessible stations under the W.T.C.; now rendered unusable) So.... now
that this accessible WTC subway E & F train stop is closed, in Manhattan
the sourhernmost subway station with elevators is several blocks to the
north & on the east side, the #6 train stop at City Hall.
This leaves Lower Manhattan less accessible than before, and that bit of
accessiblity lost is part of what needs to be restored. Not just fancy
offices for big corporations. Therefore, I ran by the Board of DIA in
our recent conference phone call, the proposal that we advocate that
part of the federal disaster aid be invested in making another
far-downtown station accessible, and the obvious choce is the big
crossroads station "Fulton-Broadway-Nassau". (This station which would
need maybe 8-10 elevators, would otherwise perhaps not otherwise become
accessible, for one or more centuries under the current very weak
"settlement", in which they may avoid a total renovation requiring
elevators, of this big station as long as possible.)
There was a general approval, and I may present this to the general
membership for approval this Sunday. This is also the meeting where
candidates for public office in the November election coming up soon,
will give short speeches & answer our questions in our Election
Forum.... and if the probable next Mayor of New York City, Mark Green
shows up, I will ask him to endorse this idea, at that time.
Jim Davis
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