 |
 |
 |
 |
(Above) Residents of Marina City’s west tower crowd into their lobby on January 17 after being told to leave their condo units and not use the elevators. Photo by Bill Edlebeck. Fire department disconnects announcement that evacuated condo 29-Jan-16 – Having a prerecorded announcement that can inadvertently evacuate a residential building is “troubling” for Chicago Fire Department and so they have removed the message from a voice communication system at Marina City. On January 17, during a small fire at about 9 p.m. on the 55th floor of Marina City’s west tower, hundreds of residents on 40 floors, including elderly residents, were told to leave their apartments, walk down anywhere from 21 to 60 flights of steep, narrow, windowless stairs, and not use an elevator. All this while sirens blared and strobe lights flashed. Residents say the stairs were crowded and the evacuation was confusing. Alan Foshay, who walked down from the 58th floor, recalled “there were elderly people crying and could hardly get down the stairs.” Among residents questioning the need for an evacuation was Ciara Newby. “If they had said it was a small fire I would have stayed in my apartment. I wondered if it was something more sinister because I couldn’t understand why we would be evacuated for that.” It was a mistake, confirmed two days later by the manager of Marina City’s residential property and then on Wednesday by CFD spokesperson Larry Langford.
Residents heard evacuation message but firefighters did not Firefighters could not hear the message because, says Langford, there is no speaker on the voice communication system to monitor the message. “We had no idea what was being said until we saw people coming into the lobby.” The prerecorded evacuation message at Marina City is no longer operational. Langford called it “well-intentioned but unnecessary.” If a building needs to be evacuated, he says CFD will make live announcements.
In case of a serious fire, Langford says residents would be told which stairwells to use and which ones to avoid. Firefighters would personally help residents get to safety. According to Langford, CFD will see if any other high-rise buildings in Chicago have a voice communication system with the evacuation message capability.
Full text of statement from Chicago Fire Department spokesperson Larry Langford about the inadvertent evacuation of Marina City’s west tower during a small fire on January 17…
The prerecorded evacuation message that was inadvertently initiated during a small fire has been disconnected per request from the fire department and is no longer operational. The message triggered by a button near the controls for the public address system was pressed as CFD members were making announcements over the loudspeaker system. This resulted in a prerecorded message being sent that had occupants evacuating the building. This system is less than ideal in that CFD had no idea what was being transmitted as there is no local speaker to monitor the message. We had no idea what was being said until we saw people coming into the lobby. The system is the only one of its kind we have come across, and we think having a prerecorded evacuation message that can be triggered by a single button and not heard by fire personnel is troubling. If a building needs to be evacuated, the Chicago Fire Department will make live announcements to make that happen. We regret that a message we could not hear was inadvertently triggered. The Fire Prevention Bureau of the CFD met with building management and they agreed to disable that feature of the system so that only live announcements can be transmitted regarding any need to evacuate. CFD is also contacting the vendor to see if any other systems [it has installed] in Chicago high-rise buildings have any similar features. In all but the most serious fires, CFD will normally tell most occupants to ‘shelter in place’ since high-rise buildings are designed to hold fires to the area of origin. Also, any mass evacuation would complicate fire response because we designate one stairwell for fire attack and to have occupants using that stairwell would hinder our efforts to fight the fire. Occupants entering that stairwell would be subject to smoke and other dangers that can occur from walking down so many flights as firefighters are working in the same stairwell. In the event of a serious fire, the Chicago Fire Department Chief in charge of the scene will tell occupants which stairwell to use and which ones to avoid and firefighters would personally assist residents to safety. Therefore, prerecorded evacuation messages are counterproductive to occupant safety and fire response. We appreciate the cooperation of Marina City in disconnecting a well-intentioned but unnecessary automated evacuation feature.
|
Previous story: 
