text and subtext

[cellio]

Message from landlord: "In accordance with city ordinance blah blah, we will be conducting a mandatory evacuation drill on $date at 10AM."

Implied message from landlord: "Unless you particularly want to walk down 43 flights of stairs, that might be a good day to make other plans."

Unknown: whether the latter was intended -- fewer people in the building means fewer people who can mess up a compliance-check, after all. Though this would have been more plausible if they'd called it for 8AM rather than 10.

On a tangent, I wonder how people with mobility impairments get out of office buildings during alarms. There's no job-related reason I couldn't have a coworker in a wheelchair, after all, so somebody must have thought this through. (Please let somebody have thought that through...) Do they keep an elevator in service in that case (even though elevators are normally disabled during fire alarms), or is the floor warden responsible for rounding up people to carry the person downstairs, or what?

Comments

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

Googling "Emergency Evacuation Disable" paints a frightening picture. It's apparently handled on a company by company basis and far too many suggest finding a room with a fire proof door, barricading yourself and calling 911. You might want to drop a line in your company suggestion box.
-- Dagonell

[cellio]

Wow, that's terrible. :-(

Our landlord is, in some ways, kind of scummy, so I doubt a note to them would do anything. My employer is mostly in another city. But fortunately we plan to be in this space for no more than another year, and I will certainly ask these questions about our long-term space.

[magid.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, at a job long long ago where there was an employee in a wheelchair, there were designated people to carry the person down the stairs.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

(drive by comment) In the buildings I have worked in, there have been fire and blast proof refuge spaces on each fire escape, where someone in a wheelchair could shelter until the professionals show up - these are the same refuge zones that we're all supposed to use if there's a bomb, when heading outside is potentially going into danger.

[cellio]

Welcome! Please feel free to drive by any time. (Tangent: "anti abolishment of fruitcake"? Nice. I know someone who makes excellent fruitcake.)

I hadn't heard of those kinds of refuge zones before (other than below ground). Good to know.

[fauxklore]

Don't you have an evacuation chair? It's a kind of stretcher / chair thing that slides down the bannisters. We've had those available in every building over 2 stories that I've worked in.

By the way, in my current building, the fire alarms only disable elevator service to the floor the fire is allegedly on and the floors immediately above and below that one.

[cellio]

Interesting. I've never heard of those. It is of course possible that I would have heard of them if I'd ever had a coworker in a wheelchair, and it's possible we do in fact have one. I've only been there a few months and we're in temporary space (one of those "rent out offices individually from somebody who rents out the whole floor" deals, where they provide infrastructure), so maybe they're on the hook for that?

With the elevators, so the idea is that an elevator can freely pass through a floor that's on fire but just can't open there? I guess they can be made fire-resistant enough for that; I hadn't thought about that. I've never, fortunately, been in an actual fire, and for the drills they disable the elevators everywhere, in my experience. This'll be my first time for one in this particular building. (Unless I develop other plans for that morning. We're floor 43 of 45, so we'll be at the back of a crowd -- so walking down the stairs probably wouldn't be good exercise because it'll be slow.)

[talvinm.livejournal.com]

Too bad you can't show up in a wheelchair for the day just to force them to show how they WOULD deal with it.

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

It involves seeing if the strong enough people are human beings. Otherwise, it is tragic.
I have heard stories. I won't share.

The best thing to do, realistically, is make very good friends with the people you trust to rely on, and have a pact with them. "you promise to get me down the stairs, as best you can, if needed, and I promise you my blood products or bone marrow or similar, if needed" or whatever strikes work-friends as fair.

[cellio]

Ugh.

I trust all my coworkers to be decent human beings. I don't question people's intentions; I wonder about abilities. Two people of reasonable strength can carry someone on the flat; how do you manage that on stairs? You have to try, of course -- it would be tragic and callous not to -- but I'm trying to visualize how to do that without sending someone tumbling down the stairs.

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

My personal solution is to try to limit myself to locations from which I can remove myself without assistance. My max is about 12 stories so I would not work higher than that.

Rescue crews carry evac chairs, but they don't go in until they can be kept safe.
If you have a staffer with mobility issues, and are concerned, it might be appropriate to mention to buildings safety keeping one on appropriate floors and training people how to use them as part of workplace safety days.

http://www.evac-chair.com/evacuation_chairs/

[goljerp]

I dunno how they handle it there, but in NYC, they now have a law requiring drills twice a year, I think. However, the drills at $OLD_COMPANY (which at the time was located right near Penn Station), consisted of 'Go out into the hall, and listen to a grizzled retired fireman tell you about what to do in various emergencies, as well as a brief rundown of the various stairways'. We never actually went down any stairs as part of the drill. The building itself was 50+ stories, although my office was below the 10th floor. As far as what to do if one was unable to walk down N flights of stairs, I think they said to check in with the building staff to let them know there was someone who required assistance; I think that a firefighter / building security would help said people down. At least in NYC (probably for reasons due to recent history), they were not suggesting people necessarily 'shelter in place' (although that was, of course, mentioned as a possible option).