NIST World Trade Center investigation highlights improvements needed for tall buildings safety

The US Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has called on the organisations that develop building and fire safety codes, standards and practices—and the state and local agencies that adopt them—to make specific changes to improve the safety of tall buildings, their occupants and first responders. The recommendations result from the agency’s investigation of the fires and collapses of New York City’s World Trade Center (WTC) towers following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Based on the findings of the most detailed examination of a building failure ever conducted, NIST is making 30 recommendations. “We believe these recommendations are both realistic and achievable within a reasonable period of time, and should greatly improve the way people design, construct, maintain and use buildings, especially high-rises,” said WTC lead investigator Shyam Sunder at a press briefing in New York City. “The recommendations also should lead to safer and more effective building evacuations and emergency responses. However, improvements will only be realised if they are acted upon by the appropriate organisations.”

The recommendations, contained within 43 draft reports (totalling some 10,000 pages) released at the end of last week for a six-week public comment period, cover:

* Specific improvements to building standards, codes and practices;

* Changes to, or the establishment of, evacuation and emergency response procedures; and

* Research and other appropriate actions needed to help prevent future building failures.

The full list of recommendations can be viewed at http://wtc.nist.gov

Amongst the recommendations are a variety of building evacuation improvements. These include:

- Improving occupant preparedness for building evacuations through joint and nationwide public educational campaigns;

- Designing tall buildings to accommodate full building evacuation of occupants if needed—including stairwell and exit capacity that accommodates counterflow due to access by emergency responders;

- Maximising the remoteness of egress components (i.e. stairs, elevators) without making them hard to reach;

- Using pagers and cell phones for broadcast warning systems and community emergency alert networks; and

- Evaluating for future use such advanced evacuation technologies as protected/hardened elevators, exterior escape systems and stairwell navigation devices.

NIST will hold a conference between September 13th–15th, 2005, at its headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., to reinforce the importance of its findings and recommendations from the investigation and encourage their implementation.

Comments on the draft reports and recommendations must be submitted by 5 pm Eastern Daylight Time on August 4th, 2005. Instructions for submission are available at http://wtc.nist.gov

•Date: 28th June 2005 • Region: US • Type: Article •Topic: Buildings / facilities BC
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