'A Gentle Whisper in Your Ear' » Accessible Fire Engineering

Progressive Collapse of WTC 7 – 2008 NIST Recommendations – Part 2 of 2

CJ Walsh — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:20:54 +0000

1st Series of Posts on the 2005 NIST WTC 1 & 2 Collapse Recommendations … which began towards the end of 2011 …

2011-10-25: NIST’s Recommendations on the 9-11 WTC Building Collapses … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendations 1, 2 & 3 (out of 30)

Previous Post in this New Series …

2012-01-18: Progressive Collapse of WTC 7 – 2008 NIST Recommendations - Part 1 of 2 … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendation A … and GROUP 2. Enhanced Fire Endurance of Structures – Recommendations B, C, D & E (out of 13)

2012-01-22: SOME PRELIMINARY COMMENTS …

1. Keeping my ear closely to the ground … I hear you wondering: ”So … how did the fires actually start in World Trade Center Building 7 ?”

Extracts from the Executive Summary (pages xxxi – xxxv) – 2008 NIST NCSTAR 1A …

[ Refer back to the WTC 1 & 2 Collapse Damage Plan in the previous post.]

The fires in WTC Building 7 were ignited as a result of the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC Tower 1, which was approximately 110 metres to the south. The debris also caused some structural damage to the south-west perimeter of WTC 7. The fires were ignited on at least 10 floors; however, only the fires on Floors 7 to 9 and 11 to 13 grew and lasted until the time of building collapse. These uncontrolled fires had characteristics similar to those that have occurred previously in tall buildings. Their growth and spread were consistent with ordinary building content fires. Had a water supply for the automatic sprinkler system been available and had the sprinkler system operated as designed, it is likely that the fires in WTC 7 would have been controlled, and the collapse prevented. However, the collapse of WTC 7 highlights the importance of designing fire resisting structures for situations where sprinklers are not present, do not function (e.g. due to disconnected or impaired water supply), or are overwhelmed.

and …

There were no serious injuries or fatalities, because the estimated 4,000 occupants of WTC 7 reacted to the airplane impacts on the two WTC Towers and began evacuating before there was significant damage to WTC 7. The occupants were able to use both the elevators and the stairs, which were as yet not damaged, obstructed, or smoke-filled. Evacuation of the building took just over an hour. The potential for injuries to people leaving the building was mitigated by building management personnel holding the occupants in the lobby until they identified an exit path that was safe from the debris falling from WTC Tower 1. The decisions not to continue evaluating the building and not to fight the fires were made hours before the building collapsed, so no emergency responders were in or near the building when the collapse occurred.

and …

The design of WTC 7 was generally consistent with the New York City Building Code of 1968 (NYCBC), with which, by policy, it was to comply. The installed thickness of the thermal insulation on the floor beams was below that required for unsprinklered or sprinklered buildings, but it is unlikely that the collapse of WTC 7 could have been prevented even if the thickness had been consistent with building code requirements. The stairwells were narrower than those required by the NYCBC, but, combined with the elevators, were adequate for a timely evacuation on 11 September 2001, since the number of building occupants was only about half that expected during normal business hours.

The collapse of WTC 7 could not have been prevented without controlling the fires before most of the combustible building contents were consumed. There were two sources of water (gravity-fed overhead tanks and the city water main) for the standpipe and automatic sprinkler systems serving Floor 21 and above, and some of the early fires on those upper floors might have actually been controlled in this manner. However, consistent with the NYCBC, both the primary and back-up source of water for the sprinkler system in the lower 20 floors of WTC 7 was the city water main. Since the collapses of the WTC Towers had damaged the water main, there was no water available (such as the gravity-fed overhead tanks that supplied water to Floor 21 and above) to control those fires that eventually led to the building collapse.

Link to read and/or download a copy of the 2008 NIST NCSTAR 1A Report … www.fireox-international.eu/fire/structdesfire.htm

2. On a separate subject and quite by chance … a few days ago, I was invited to review a technical paper for a reputable international fire engineering journal (which shall remain nameless). The paper was discussing a certain aspect of steel column critical temperatures. After three days, I replied to the journal’s editor as follows …

2012-01-18.

Most regrettably, I must decline your invitation to review Paper XYZ.

The ‘critical temperature’ approach to the fire engineering design of steel-framed structures is deeply flawed … and obsolete.

C. J. Walsh, FireOx International – Ireland, Italy & Turkey.

The ‘critical temperature’ approach is antiquated … and this nonsense has got to stop ! NOW … would be the best time !!

3. In the last post, I wrote …

Structural Fire Engineering is concerned with those aspects of fire engineering which relate to structural design for fire, and the complex architectural interaction between a building’s structure and fabric, i.e. non-structure, under conditions of fire and its immediate aftermath.

Indeed ! But, more needs to be added …

I hope it is becoming clearer now that Structural Fire Engineering is not just ambient structural engineering with a few extra ‘bells and whistles’ grafted on … in token consideration of what could happen in fire conditions, i.e. at high temperatures.

[ If, in some jurisdictions, there are no legal requirements to add even those 'bells and whistles' ... then, typically, even they will be omitted ! ]

This brings me right back to the typical education of Civil/Structural Engineers; because: (i) they exit the educational system with little understanding of anything beyond ‘structure’ … in other words, a ‘real’ building, which also comprises ‘fabric’, i.e. non-structure, is a mystery to them; and (ii) they have difficulty reading architectural drawings … which is why a walk-through inspection of a building, as it is nearing completion, is much preferred over a detailed discussion about drawings at the most appropriate stage, which is well before construction commences … when faults can be readily identified and easily rectified !

In ambient conditions … the architectural interaction between a building’s structure and fabric is difficult, not being entirely static. Before the surface finishes have been applied, it is immediately obvious when this interaction has been properly ‘designed’, and looks neat and tidy … or, on the vast majority of construction sites, when this interaction is a ‘traffic accident’, and the results are desperately ugly … and you know that they can’t apply the surface finishes quickly enough in order to hide everything from view !

In fire conditions … this architectural interaction between building fabric and structure is complex, certainly very dynamic … and fluid !

It would be more appropriate to think of Structural Fire Engineering as ‘Design in the Hot Form’ … which is a completely different mindset.

It is essential, therefore, that Fire Engineers understand ‘real’ buildings … most importantly, the ‘design’ of real buildings … and, that they know which end is ‘up’ on a real construction site !! See NIST WTC 7 Recommendation L below.

4. Since the collapse of WTC Building 7 on 11 September 2001, it has been generally assumed that Fire-Induced Progressive Collapse is a large-scale, macro-phenomenon only. But, believe it or not, this phenomenon has also been observed at micro-level in small building types.

In fact … Progressive Collapse was already receiving sporadic attention, in Ireland, as far back as the 1980′s …

As organizer of the 1987 Dublin International Fire Conference: ‘Fire, Access & Safety in Residential Buildings’, I requested that the following Paper be presented … ‘Design against Progressive Collapse in Fire’ … by Dr. Willie Crowe, who was Head of Construction Technology, in the old Institute for Industrial Research & Standards (IIRS) in Ireland. He later became Manager of the Irish Agrément Board (IAB). Those were the days … and Willie really knew his stuff !

Mr. Noel C. Manning, of FireBar in Ireland (www.firebar.ie), and I both contributed to the development of his Paper.

And now is as good a time as any to give full credit to Noel Manning for his innovative approach to Structural Fire Engineering back in the early 1980′s. He’s a ‘hard man’ … a term that we use for some special people in Ireland !

Link to the Dublin International Fire Conferences, and a copy of this Paper … www.fireox-international.eu/fire/dublinfire.htm

For approximately 12 years from the mid-1980′s, I was a Member of the National Masonry Panel – the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) Masonry Standards Advisory Committee. A small, but substantial, text on Fire-Induced Progressive Collapse in Buildings was included, by me, in the following standard … Irish Standard 325: Code of Practice for Use in Masonry – Part 2: Masonry Construction (1995). Appendix A – Determination of Movement in Masonry. A.3 – Thermal Movement. Once again … those were the days … when I was the only architect in a sea of engineers !! Not a pretty experience.

5. What next ? A final draft of the International CIB W14 Research WG IV Reflection Document on Fire-Induced Progressive Collapse will be completed in time for circulation to all CIB W14 members before the end of March 2012 … well in time for the next CIB W14 Meetings in Greece, near the end of April 2012.

2008 NIST WTC 7 RECOMMENDATIONS (Final Report NCSTAR 1A)

5.1.3 GROUP 3. New Methods for Fire Resisting Design of Structures

The procedures and practices used in the fire resisting design of structures should be enhanced by requiring an objective that uncontrolled fires result in burnout without partial or global (total) collapse. Performance-based methods are an alternative to prescriptive design methods. This effort should include the development and evaluation of new fire resisting coating materials and technologies, and evaluation of the fire performance of conventional and high-performance structural materials.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation F (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 8).

NIST recommends that the fire resistance of structures be enhanced by requiring a performance objective that uncontrolled building fires result in burnout without partial or global (total) collapse. Such a provision should recognize that sprinklers could be compromised, non-operational, or non-existent. Current methods for determining the fire resistance of structural assemblies do not explicitly specify a performance objective. The rating resulting from current test methods indicates that the assembly (component or sub-system) continued to support its superimposed load (simulating a maximum load condition) during the test exposure without collapse. Model Building Codes: This Recommendation should be included in the national model building codes as an objective, and adopted as an integral pert of the fire resistance design for structures. The issue of non-operational sprinklers could be addressed using the existing concept of Design Scenario 8 of NFPA 5000, where such compromise is assumed and the result is required to be acceptable to the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). Affected Standards: ASCE-7, AISC Specifications, ACI 318, and ASCE/SFPE 29.

Relevance to WTC 7: Large, uncontrolled fires led to failure of a critical column and consequently the complete collapse of WTC 7. In the region of the collapse initiation (i.e. on the east side of Floor 13), the fire had consumed virtually all of the combustible building contents, yet collapse was not prevented.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation G (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 9).

NIST recommends the development of: (1) performance-based standards and code provisions, as an alternative to current prescriptive design methods, to enable the design and retrofit of structures to resist real building fire conditions, including their ability to achieve the performance objective of burnout without structural or local fire collapse; and (2) the tools, guidelines, and test methods necessary to evaluate the fire performance of the structure as a whole system. Standards development organizations, including the American Institute of Steel Construction, have already begun developing performance-based provisions to consider the effects of fire in structural design.

a. Standard methodology, supported by performance criteria, analytical design tools, and practical design guidance; related building standards and codes for fire resistance design and retrofit of structures, working through the consensus process for nationwide adoption; comprehensive design rules and guidelines; methodology for evaluating thermo-structural performance of structures; and computational models and analysis procedures for use in routine design practice.

b. Standard methodology for specifying multi-compartment, multi-floor fire scenarios for use in the design and analysis of structures to resist fires, accounting for building-specific conditions such as geometry, compartmentation, fuel load (e.g. building contents and any flammable fuels such as oil and gas), fire spread, and ventilation; and methodology for rating the fire resistance of structural systems and barriers under realistic design-basis fire scenarios.

c. Publicly available computational software to predict the effects of fires in buildings – developed, validated, and maintained through a national effort – for use in the design of fire protection systems and the analysis of building response to fires. Improvements should include the fire behaviour and contribution of real combustibles; the performance of openings, including door openings and window breakage, that controls the amount of oxygen available to support the growth and spread of fires and whether the fire is fuel-controlled or ventilation-controlled; the floor-to-floor flame spread; the temperature rise in both insulated and un-insulated structural members and fire barriers; and the structural response of components, sub-systems, and the total building system due to the fire.

d. Temperature-dependent thermal and mechanical property data for conventional and innovative construction materials.

e. New test methods, together with associated conformance assessment criteria, to support the performance-based methods for fire resistance design and retrofit of structures. The performance objective of burnout without collapse will require the development of standard fire exposures that differ from those currently used.

There is a critical gap in knowledge about how structures perform in real fires, particularly concerning: the effects of fire on the entire structural system (including thermal expansion effects at lower temperatures); interaction between the sub-systems, elements, and connections; and scaling of fire test results to full-scale structures (especially for structures with long-span floor systems).

Relevance to WTC 7: A performance-based assessment of the effects of fire on WTC 7, had it considered all of the relevant thermal effects (e.g. thermal expansion effects that occur at lower temperatures), would have identified the vulnerability of the building to fire-induced progressive collapse and allowed alternative designs for the structural system.

5.1.4 GROUP 4. Improved Active Fire Protection

Active fire protection systems (i.e. sprinklers, standpipes/hoses, fire alarms, and smoke management systems) should be enhanced through improvements to the design, performance, reliability, and redundancy of such systems.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation H (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 12).

NIST recommends that the performance, and possibly the redundancy and reliability of active fire protection systems (sprinklers, standpipes/hoses, fire alarms, and smoke management systems), in buildings be enhanced to accommodate the greater risks associated with increasing building height and population, increased use of open spaces, high-risk building activities, fire department response limits, transient fuel loads, and higher threat profile.

Reliability is affected by (a) redundancy, such that when one water supply is out of service (usually for maintenance), the other interconnected water supply can continue to protect the building and its occupants; (b) automatic operation of water supply systems (not only for starting fire pumps but also for testing and tank replenishment, with appropriate remote alarms to the fire department and local alarms for notifying emergency personnel); and (c) the use of suitable equipment and techniques to regulate unusual pressure considerations.

Relevance to WTC 7: No water was available for the automatic suppression systems on the lower 20 storeys of WTC 7, once water from street-level mains was disrupted. This lack of reliability in the source of the primary and secondary water supplies allowed the growth and spread of fires that ultimately resulted in collapse of the building.

5.1.5 GROUP 6. Improved Emergency Response

Technologies and procedures for emergency response should be improved to enable better access to buildings, response operations, emergency communications, and command and control in large-scale emergencies.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation I (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 24).

NIST recommends the establishment and implementation of codes and protocols for ensuring effective and uninterrupted operation of the command and control system for large-scale building emergencies.

a. State, local, and federal jurisdictions should implement the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The jurisdictions should work with the Department of Homeland Security to review, test, evaluate, and implement an effective unified command and control system. NIMS addresses interagency co-ordination and establishes a response matrix – assigning lead agency responsibilities for different types of emergencies, and functions. At a minimum, each supporting agency should assign an individual to provide co-ordination with the lead agency at each incident command post.

b. State, local, and federal emergency operations centres (EOC’s) should be located, designed, built, and operated with security and operational integrity as a key consideration.

c. Command posts should be established outside the potential collapse footprint of any building which shows evidence of large multi-floor fires or has serious structural damage. A continuous assessment of building stability and safety should be made in such emergencies to guide ongoing operations and enhance emergency responder safety. The information necessary to make these assessments should be made available to those assigned responsibility (see related Recommendations 15 and 23 in NIST NCSTAR 1).

d. An effective command system should be established and operating before a large number of emergency responders and apparatus are dispatched and deployed. Through training and drills, emergency responders and ambulances should be required to await dispatch requests from the incident command system and not to self-dispatch in large-scale emergencies.

e. Actions should be taken via training and drills to ensure a co-ordinated and effective emergency response at all levels of the incident command chain by requiring all emergency responders that are given an assignment to immediately adopt and execute the assignment objectives.

f. Command post information and incident operations data should be managed and broadcast to command and control centres at remote locations so that information is secure and accessible by all personnel needing the information. Methods should be developed and implemented so that any information that is available at an interior information centre is transmitted to an emergency responder vehicle or command post outside the building.

Relevance to WTC 7: (1) The New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) was located in WTC 7 and was evacuated before key fire ground decisions had to be made. The location of OEM in WTC 7, which collapsed due to ordinary building fires, contributed to the loss of robust interagency command and control on 11 September 2001. (2) Due to the collapse of the WTC Towers and the loss of responders and fire control resources, there was an evolving site leadership during the morning and afternoon. Key decisions (e.g. not to fight the fires in WTC 7 and to turn off power to the Con Edison substation) were reasonable and would not have changed the outcome on 11 September 2001, but were not made promptly. Under different circumstances (e.g. if WTC 7 had collapsed sooner and firefighters were still evaluating the building condition), the outcome could have been very different.

5.1.6 GROUP 7. Improved Procedures and Practices

The procedures and practices used in the design, construction, maintenance, and operation of buildings should be improved to include encouraging code compliance by non-governmental and quasi-governmental entities, adoption and application of evacuation and sprinkler requirements in codes for existing buildings, and retention and availability of building documents over the life of a building.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation J (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 27).

NIST recommends that building codes incorporate a provision that requires building owners to retain documents, including supporting calculations and test data, related to building design, construction, maintenance, and modifications over the entire life of the building.* Means should be developed for off-site storage and maintenance of the documents. In addition, NIST recommends that relevant information be made available in suitably designed hard copy or electronic formats for use by emergency responders. Such information should be easily accessible by responders during emergencies.

[ * F-12 The availability of inexpensive electronic storage media and tools for creating large searchable databases makes this feasible.]

Relevance to WTC 7: The efforts required in locating and acquiring drawings, specifications, tenant layouts, and material certifications, and especially shop fabrication drawings, significantly lengthened the investigation into the collapse of WTC 7.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation K (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 28).

[ * F-13 In projects involving a design team, the 'Design Professional in Responsible Charge' - usually the lead architect - ensures that the team members use consistent design data and assumptions, co-ordinates overlapping specifications, and serves as the liaison between the enforcement and reviewing officials and the owner. This term is defined in the International Building Code (IBC) and in the International Code Council's Performance Code for Buildings and Facilities (where it is the Principal Design Professional).]

Relevance to WTC 7: Following typical practice, none of the design professionals in charge of the WTC 7 Project (i.e. architect - structural engineer - fire protection engineer) was assigned the responsibility to explicitly evaluate the fire performance of the structural system. Holistic consideration of thermal and structural factors during the design or review stage could have identified the potential for the failure and might have prevented the collapse of the building.

5.1.7 GROUP 8. Education and Training

The professional skills of building and fire safety professionals should be upgraded through a national education and training effort for fire protection engineers, structural engineers, and architects. The skills of building regulatory and fire service personnel should also be upgraded to provide sufficient understanding and the necessary skills to conduct the review, inspection, and approval tasks for which they are responsible.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation L (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 29).

NIST recommends that continuing education curricula be developed, and programmes be implemented for: (1) training fire protection engineers and architects in structural engineering principles and design; and (2) training structural engineers, architects, fire protection engineers, and code enforcement officials in modern fire protection principles and technologies, including the fire resisting design of structures; and (3) training building regulatory and fire service personnel to upgrade their understanding and skills to conduct the review, inspection, and approval tasks for which they are responsible. The outcome would further the integration of the disciplines in effective fire-safe design of buildings.

Relevance to WTC 7: Discerning the fire-structure interactions that led to the collapse of WTC 7 required research professionals with expertise in both disciplines. Assuring the safety of future buildings will require that participants in the design and review processes possess a combined knowledge of fire science, materials science, heat transfer, and structural engineering, and design.

NIST WTC 7 Recommendation M (NCSTAR 1 Recommendation 30).

NIST recommends that academic, professional short-course, and web-based training materials in the use of computational fire dynamics and thermo-structural analysis tools be developed and delivered to strengthen the base of available technical capabilities and human resources.

Relevance to WTC 7: NIST stretched the state-of-the-art in the computational tools needed to reconstruct a fire-induced progressive collapse. This enabled identification of the critical processes that led to that collapse. Making these expanded tools and derivative, validated, and simplified modelling approaches usable by practitioners could prevent future disasters.

END

Post-9/11 & Post-Mumbai Fire Engineering – What Future ?

CJ Walsh — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:24:20 +0000

Previous Posts in This Series …

2011-10-25: NIST’s Recommendations on the 9-11 WTC Building Collapses … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendations 1, 2 & 3 (out of 30)

2011-11-18: NIST WTC Recommendations 4-7 > Structural Fire Endurance … GROUP 2. Enhanced Fire Endurance of Structures – Recommendations 4, 5, 6 & 7

2011-11-24: NIST WTC Recommendations 8-11 > New Design of Structures … GROUP 3. New Methods for Fire Resisting Design of Structures – Recommendations 8, 9, 10 & 11

2011-11-25: NIST WTC Recommendations 12-15 > Improved Active Protection … GROUP 4. Improved Active Fire Protection – Recommendations 12, 13, 14 & 15

2011-11-30: NIST Recommendations 16-20 > Improved People Evacuation … GROUP 5. Improved Building Evacuation – Recommendations 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20

2011-12-04: NIST WTC Recommendations 21-24 > Improved Firefighting … GROUP 6. Improved Emergency Response – Recommendations 21, 22, 23 & 24

2011-12-07: NIST WTC Recommendations 25-28 > Improved Practices … GROUP 7. Improved Procedures and Practices – Recommendations 25, 26, 27 & 28

2011-12-08: NIST WTC Recommendations 29-30 > Improved Fire Education … GROUP 8. Education and Training – Recommendations 29 & 30 (out of 30)

Colour image showing 'The Cloud' Residential Tower Project, in Seoul (South Korea) ... which will be completed in 2015. Design by MVRDV Architects, The Netherlands. Click to enlarge.

2011-12-15: You know what is coming soon … so Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to One and All !!

1. There were 2 Important Reasons for undertaking this Series of Posts …

(a) The General Public, and particularly Client Organizations, should be facilitated in directly accessing the core content of the 2005 NIST WTC Recommendations. Up to now, many people have found this to be a daunting task. More importantly, I also wanted to clearly show that implementation of the Recommendations is still proceeding far too slowly … and that today, many significant aspects of these Recommendations remain unimplemented. Furthermore, in the case of some recent key national standards, e.g. British Standard BS 9999, which was published in 2008 … the NIST Recommendations were entirely ignored.

As a golden rule … National Building Codes/Regulations and National Standards … cannot, should not, and must not … be applied without informed thought and many questions, on the part of a building designer !

(b) With the benefit of hindsight, and our practical experience in FireOx International … I also wanted to add a necessary 2011 Technical Commentary to the NIST Recommendations … highlighting some of the radical implications, and some of the limitations, of these Recommendations … in the hope of initiating a much-needed and long overdue international discussion on the subject.

Colour photograph showing the Taipei 101 Tower, in Taiwan ... which was completed in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners Architects/Planners, Taiwan. Click to enlarge.

” Architecture is the language of a culture.”

” A living building is the information space where life can be found. Life exists within the space. The information of space is then the information of life. Space is the body of the building. The building is therefore the space, the information, and the life.”

C.Y. Lee & Partners Architects/Planners, Taiwan

[ This is a local dialect of familiar Architectural Language. However, the new multi-aspect language of Sustainable Design is fast evolving. In order to perform as an effective and creative member of a Trans-Disciplinary Design & Construction Team ... can Fire Engineers quickly learn to communicate on these wavelengths ?? Evidence to date suggests not ! ]

2. ‘Climate Change’ & ‘Energy Stability’ – Relentless Driving Forces for Sustainable Design !

Not only is Sustainable Fire Engineering inevitable … it must be ! And not at some distant point in the future … but now … yesterday !! There is such a build-up of pressure on Spatial Planners and Building Designers to respond quickly, creatively, intuitively and appropriately to the relentless driving forces of Climate Change (including climate change mitigation, adaptation, and severe weather resilience) and Energy Stability (including energy efficiency and conservation) … that there is no other option for the International Fire Science and Engineering Community but to adapt. Adapt and evolve … or become irrelevant !!

And one more interesting thought to digest … ‘Green’ is not the answer. ’Green’ looks at only one aspect of Sustainable Human & Social Development … the Environment. This is a blinkered, short-sighted, simplistic and ill-conceived approach to realizing the complex goal of a Safe and Sustainable Built Environment. ‘Green’ is ‘Sustainability’ for innocent children !!

Colour image showing the Shanghai Tower Project, in China ... which will be completed in 2014. Design by Gensler Architects & Planners, USA. Click to enlarge.

(a) Organization for Economic Co-Operation & Development (OECD) – 2012′s Environmental Outlook to 2050

Extract from Pre-Release Climate Change Chapter, November 2011 …

‘ Climate change presents a global systemic risk to society. It threatens the basic elements of life for all people: access to water, food production, health, use of land, and physical and natural capital. Inadequate attention to climate change could have significant social consequences for human wellbeing, hamper economic growth and heighten the risk of abrupt and large-scale changes to our climatic and ecological systems. The significant economic damage could equate to a permanent loss in average per capita world consumption of more than 14% (Stern, 2006). Some poor countries would be likely to suffer particularly severely. This chapter demonstrates how avoiding these economic, social and environmental costs will require effective policies to shift economies onto low-carbon and climate-resilient growth paths.’

(b) U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Greenhouse Gas Bulletin No.7, November 2011

Executive Summary …

The latest analysis of observations from the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Programme shows that the globally averaged mixing ratios of Carbon Dioxide (CO₂), Methane (CH₄) and Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) reached new highs in 2010, with CO₂ at 389.0 parts per million (ppm), CH₄ at 1808 parts per billion (ppb) and N₂O at 323.2 ppb. These values are greater than those in pre-industrial times (before 1750) by 39%, 158% and 20%, respectively. Atmospheric increases of CO₂ and N₂O from 2009 to 2010 are consistent with recent years, but they are higher than both those observed from 2008 to 2009 and those averaged over the past 10 years. Atmospheric CH₄ continues to increase, consistent with the past three years. The U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Annual Greenhouse Gas Index shows that from 1990 to 2010 radiative forcing by long-lived Greenhouse Gases (GHG’s) increased by 29%, with CO₂ accounting for nearly 80% of this increase. Radiative forcing of N₂O exceeded that of CFC-12, making N₂O the third most important long-lived Greenhouse Gas.

(c) International Energy Agency (IEA) – World Energy Outlook, November 2011

Extract from Executive Summary …

‘ There are few signs that the urgently needed change in direction in global energy trends is underway. Although the recovery in the world economy since 2009 has been uneven, and future economic prospects remain uncertain, global primary energy demand rebounded by a remarkable 5% in 2010, pushing CO₂ emissions to a new high. Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption of fossil fuels jumped to over $400 billion. The number of people without access to electricity remained unacceptably high at 1.3 Billion, around 20% of the world’s population. Despite the priority in many countries to increase energy efficiency, global energy intensity worsened for the second straight year. Against this unpromising background, events such as those at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have cast doubts on the reliability of energy supply, while concerns about sovereign financial integrity have shifted the focus of government attention away from energy policy and limited their means of policy intervention, boding ill for agreed global climate change objectives.’

Colour image showing the One World Trade Center Project, in New York City (USA) ... which will be completed in 2013. Design by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Architects/Planners, USA. Click to enlarge.

[ Not just in the case of Tall, Super-Tall and Mega-Tall Buildings ... but the many, many Other Building Types in the Built Environment ... are Building Designers implementing the 2005 & 2008 NIST WTC Recommendations ... without waiting for Building and Fire Codes/Regulations and Standards to be properly revised and updated ?? Evidence to date suggests not ! ]

3. Separate Dilemmas for Client Organizations and Building Designers …

As discussed earlier in this Series … the Fire Safety Objectives of Building and Fire Codes/Regulations are limited to:

The protection of building users/occupants ; and
The protection of property … BUT only insofar as that is relevant to the protection of the users/occupants ;

… because the function of Building and Fire Codes is to protect Society. Well, that is supposed to be true ! Unfortunately, not all Codes/Regulations are adequate or up-to-date … as we have been observing here in these posts.

Just taking the Taipei 101 Tower as an example, I have very recently sent out three genuine, bona fide e-mail messages from our practice …

2011-12-08

Toshiba Elevator & Building Systems Corporation (TELC), Japan.

To Whom It May Concern …

Knowing that your organization was involved in the Taipei 101 Project … we have been examining your WebSite very carefully. However, some important information was missing from there.

For our International Work … we would like to receive technical information on the Use of Elevators for Fire Evacuation in Buildings … which we understand is actually happening in the Taipei Tower, since it was completed in 2004.

The Universal Design approach must also be integrated into any New Elevators.

Can you help us ?

C.J. Walsh

[2012-01-10 ... No reply yet !]

2011-12-12

Mr. Thomas Z. Scarangello P.E. – Chairman & CEO, Thornton Tomasetti Structural Engineers, New York.

Dear Thomas,

Knowing that your organization was involved in the structural design of the Taipei 101 Tower, which was completed in 2004 … and in the on-going design of many other iconic tall, super-tall and mega-tall buildings around the world … we have been examining your Company Brochures and WebSite very carefully. However, some essential information is missing.

As you are certainly aware … implementation of the 2005 & 2008 National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Recommendations on the Collapse of WTC Buildings 1, 2 & 7, in New York, on 11 September 2001 … is still proceeding at a snail’s pace, i.e. very slowly. Today, many significant aspects of NIST’s Recommendations remain unimplemented.

For our International Work … we would like to understand how you have responded directly to the NIST Recommendations … and incorporated the necessary additional modifications into your current structural fire engineering designs.

Many thanks for your kind attention. In anticipation of your prompt and detailed response …

C.J. Walsh

[2012-01-10 ... No reply yet !]

2011-12-14

Mr. C.Y. Lee & Mr. C.P. Wang, Principal Architects – C.Y. Lee & Partners Architects/Planners, Taiwan.

Dear Sirs,

Knowing that your architectural practice designed the Taipei 101 Tower, which was completed in 2004 … and, later, was also involved in the design of other tall and super-tall buildings in Taiwan and China … we have been examining your Company WebSite very carefully. However, some essential information is missing.

As you are probably aware … implementation of the 2005 & 2008 U.S. National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Recommendations on the Collapse of WTC Buildings 1, 2 & 7, in New York City, on 11 September 2001 … is still proceeding at a snail’s pace, i.e. very slowly. Today, many significant aspects of NIST’s Recommendations remain unimplemented.

Many thanks for your kind attention. In anticipation of your prompt and detailed response …

C.J. Walsh

[2012-01-10 ... No reply yet !]

So … how many Clients, or Client Organizations, are aware that to properly protect their interests … even, a significant part of their interests … it is vitally necessary that Project-Specific Fire Engineering Design Objectives be developed which will have a much wider scope ? The answer is … not many !

How many Architects, Structural Engineers, and Fire Engineers fully explain this to their Clients or Client Organizations ?

And how many Clients/Client Organizations either know that they should ask, or have the balls to ask … their Architect, Structural Engineer and Fire Engineer for this explanation … and furthermore, in the case of any High-Rise Building, Iconic Building, or Building having an Important Function or an Innovative Design … ask the same individuals for some solid reassurance that they have responded directly to the 2005 & 2008 NIST WTC Recommendations … and incorporated the necessary additional modifications into your current designs … whatever current Building and Fire Codes/Regulations do or do not say ?? A big dilemma !

A common and very risky dilemma for Building Designers, however, arises in the situation where the Project Developer, i.e. the Client/Client Organization … is the same as the Construction Organization. The Project Design & Construction Team - as a whole - now has very little power or authority if a conflict arises over technical aspects of the design … or over construction costs. An even bigger dilemma !!

Colour image showing the Kingdom Tower Project, in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) ... which will be completed in 2018. Design by Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture, USA. Click to enlarge.

4. The Next Series of Posts – 2008 NIST WTC Recommendations

In the new year of 2012 … I will examine the later NIST Recommendations which were a response to the Fire-Induced Progressive Collapse of World Trade Center Building No.7.

Colour image showing the Signature Tower Project, in Jakarta (Indonesia) ... which will be completed in 2016. Design by Smallwood Reynolds Stewart Stewart Architects & Planners, USA. Click to enlarge.

5. Please … Your Comments, Views & Opinions ?!?

The future of Conventional Fire Engineering ended on the morning of Tuesday, 11 September 2001, in New York City … an engineering discipline constrained by a long heritage deeply embedded in, and manacled to, an outdated and inflexible prescriptive approach to Codes/Regulations and Standards … an approach which is irrational, ignores the ‘real’ needs of the ‘real’ people who use and/or occupy ‘real’ buildings … and, quite frankly, no longer makes any scientific sense !!

On the other hand … having confronted the harsh realities of 9/11 and the Mumbai ‘Hive’ Attacks, and digested the 2005 & 2008 NIST WTC Recommendations … Sustainable Fire Engineering … having a robust empirical basis, being ‘person-centred’, and positively promoting creativity … offers the International Fire Science and Engineering Community a confident journey forward into the future … on many diverse routes !

This IS the only appropriate response to the exciting architectural innovations and fire safety challenges of today’s Built Environment.

BUT … what do you think ?

END

NIST WTC Recommendations 29-30 > Improved Fire Education

CJ Walsh — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:51:43 +0000

Previous Posts in This Series …

2011-10-25: NIST’s Recommendations on the 9-11 WTC Building Collapses … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendations 1, 2 & 3 (out of 30)

2011-11-18: NIST WTC Recommendations 4-7 > Structural Fire Endurance … GROUP 2. Enhanced Fire Endurance of Structures – Recommendations 4, 5, 6 & 7

2011-11-24: NIST WTC Recommendations 8-11 > New Design of Structures … GROUP 3. New Methods for Fire Resisting Design of Structures – Recommendations 8, 9, 10 & 11

2011-11-25: NIST WTC Recommendations 12-15 > Improved Active Protection … GROUP 4. Improved Active Fire Protection – Recommendations 12, 13, 14 & 15

2011-11-30: NIST Recommendations 16-20 > Improved People Evacuation … GROUP 5. Improved Building Evacuation – Recommendations 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20

2011-12-04: NIST WTC Recommendations 21-24 > Improved Firefighting … GROUP 6. Improved Emergency Response – Recommendations 21, 22, 23 & 24

2011-12-07: NIST WTC Recommendations 25-28 > Improved Practices … GROUP 7. Improved Procedures and Practices – Recommendations 25, 26, 27 & 28

2011-12-08: SOME PRELIMINARY COMMENTS …

1. At last, we arrive at the Group 8 Recommendations ! At this stage … my impression is that the NIST Team began to run out of steam, because these two short Recommendations barely scratch the surface with regard to the significant education and training needs of the many different design, construction, management, operation, maintenance and emergency response disciplines engaged with, and confronted by, the Built Environment … every day of every week.

After a careful reading of all 30 NIST WTC Recommendations, I hope that you have satisfied yourself/yourselves that these Recommendations must be applied to ALL Buildings … not just Tall Buildings. At various times … Iconic Buildings, and Buildings having a Critical Function or an Innovative Design have been specifically mentioned. And look back to Recommendation 22a … tunnels and subways also made an appearance ! The proper focus for the International Fire Science and Engineering Community must be on the Built Environment as a whole.

At All Levels in a Typical Construction Project … there are also pressing education and training needs. It is of little use if the Project Design Documentation is 100% … and the people actually installing the passive fire protection measures or the active fire protection systems on site don’t know which end is ‘up’ ! The Project Design Documentation, in whatever format, is merely a means to an end … a fully realized and occupied Building, which is fire-safe.

Preferably … we should be discussing the mandatory Re-education and Re-training of Practitioners in the different Disciplines … [CPD (Continuing Professional/Personal Development) is not at all sufficient !] … accompanied by a very necessary Re-engineering of the Stakeholder Professional and Educational Institutions … and other related Organizations, particularly National Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ’s).

Our Best Hope for Transformation … lies with the current crop of third-level undergraduate students in the different disciplines. And, as we are discovering with the introduction of the Structural EuroCodes in the European Union, it will take perhaps 5-8 years of continuous student output to transform pre-9/11 conventional fire engineering … into a post-9/11 and post-Mumbai fire engineering which is properly ‘reliability-based’ and ‘person-centred’, i.e. Sustainable Fire Engineering !

As for the Future, and Some Conclusions to this Series … coming shortly to a computer monitor screen near you !

2005 NIST WTC RECOMMENDATIONS

GROUP 8. Education and Training

NIST WTC Recommendation 29.

NIST WTC Recommendation 30.

END

NIST WTC Recommendations 25-28 > Improved Practices

CJ Walsh — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:47:01 +0000

Previous Posts in This Series …

2011-10-25: NIST’s Recommendations on the 9-11 WTC Building Collapses … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendations 1, 2 & 3 (out of 30)

2011-11-18: NIST WTC Recommendations 4-7 > Structural Fire Endurance … GROUP 2. Enhanced Fire Endurance of Structures – Recommendations 4, 5, 6 & 7

2011-11-24: NIST WTC Recommendations 8-11 > New Design of Structures … GROUP 3. New Methods for Fire Resisting Design of Structures – Recommendations 8, 9, 10 & 11

2011-11-25: NIST WTC Recommendations 12-15 > Improved Active Protection … GROUP 4. Improved Active Fire Protection – Recommendations 12, 13, 14 & 15

2011-11-30: NIST Recommendations 16-20 > Improved People Evacuation … GROUP 5. Improved Building Evacuation – Recommendations 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20

2011-12-04: NIST WTC Recommendations 21-24 > Improved Firefighting … GROUP 6. Improved Emergency Response – Recommendations 21, 22, 23 & 24

2011-12-07: SOME PRELIMINARY COMMENTS …

1. Concerning Recommendation 25 below … yes, this Recommendation applies to the types of organizations identified in the text, but it should also be understood as applying to ALL Organizations … public or private, governmental or non-governmental or quasi-governmental, whatever, etc … ‘supported’ (see the text further down in Recommendation 25) with rigorous enforcement, in all cases, by publically appointed building control officials and/or by private, independent, competent technical control professionals.

Once more … and again and again (!) … confirmed by the sort of debacle seen at the Priory Hall Apartment Complex, in Dublin … Self-Certification / Self-Approval, i.e. ‘lite’ regulation, does not work. For National Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ’s), however, it is a cheap solution to a difficult, resource-devouring issue, i.e. protecting society and the consumer … in that order.

2. Concerning the Footnote to Recommendation 26 below … the choice should never be between either Fire Compartmentation or Sprinklers … or the other way around, whichever you prefer. Neither is 100% reliable !

Fire Compartmentation

The division of a building into fire-tight compartments, by fire and smoke resisting elements of construction, in order …

to contain an outbreak of fire, and to facilitate effective firefighting ;
to prevent damage, within the building, to other adjoining compartments and/or spaces ;
to protect a compartment interior from external fire attack, e.g. fire spread across the building’s facade or from an adjacent building ;
to minimize adverse, or harmful, environmental impacts outside the building.

As developed as that definition is above, Fire Compartmentation should be regarded as just one Fire Safety Strategy / Fire Engineering Strategy … not the only strategy, and certainly not the main strategy.

Here are two reasons why not …

a) The connection between compartment size and the ability to effectively fight a fire within a space of limited volume has been lost … so more and more, commercial pressure is being exerted on national authorities to expand the acceptable compartment sizes in buildings … which significantly increases the fire hazard ;

[ Remembering the difference between the limited Fire Safety Objectives of Building Codes/Regulations and the much broader Project-Specific Fire Engineering Objectives of Ethical Fire Engineering required to protect society and the full interests of our clients ... it is easy to understand why national authorities feel that they can respond positively to such commercial pressures.]

b) In a Sustainable Building … it is a very common design strategy to take advantage of the natural patterns of air movement in a building, for either cooling or heating purposes, depending on local climate conditions. So there is simply no compartmentation, as understood in conventional fire engineering terms … and this throws up a fundamental conflict between the two. To be discussed in another post !

3. Concerning the 2nd Footnote to Recommendation 28 below … in the very same New York City … at 09.40 hrs on a Saturday morning, 28 July 1945 … lost in fog, a B-25 Bomber slammed head-on into the 79th Floor of the Empire State Building … and caused enormous damage. That building is still standing today … and surprise, surprise … there was aviation fuel in the B-25 !

In a similar vein … Fire-Induced Progressive Collapse was not observed for the first time, in New York, on 11 September 2001 !

2005 NIST WTC RECOMMENDATIONS

GROUP 7. Improved Procedures and Practices

The procedures and practices used in the design, construction, maintenance, and operation of buildings should be improved to include encouraging code compliance by non-governmental and quasi-governmental entities, adoption and application of egress and sprinkler requirements in codes for existing buildings, and retention and availability of building documents over the life of a building.

NIST WTC Recommendation 25.

Non-governmental and quasi-governmental entities that own or lease buildings and are not subject to building and fire safety code requirements of any governmental jurisdiction are nevertheless concerned about the safety of building occupants and responding emergency personnel. NIST recommends that such entities be encouraged to provide a level of safety that equals or exceeds the level of safety that would be provided by strict compliance with the code requirements of an appropriate governmental jurisdiction. NIST further recommends that as-designed and as-built safety be certified by a qualified third party, independent of the building owner(s). The process should not use self-approval for code enforcement in areas including interpretation of code provisions, design approval, product acceptance, certification of the final construction, and post-occupancy inspections over the life of the buildings.*

[ * F-46 The long-standing stated policy of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PANYNJ) was to meet and, where appropriate, exceed the requirements of local building and fire codes, and it entered into agreements with the New York City Department of Buildings and the Fire Department of the City of New York in accordance with that policy. Although the PANYNJ sought review and concurrence from New York City in the areas listed in the Recommendation, the PANYNJ was not required to yield, and appears not to have yielded, approval authority to New York City. The PANYNJ was created as an interstate entity, a 'body corporate and politic', under its charter, pursuant to Article 1, Section 10 of the United States Constitution permitting compacts between states. Further, there are many other similar non-governmental and quasi-governmental entities in the U.S. A comprehensive review of documents conducted as part of this Investigation suggests that the WTC towers generally were designed and maintained consistent with the requirements of the 1968 New York City Building Code. Areas of concern included fireproofing of the WTC floor system, height of tenant separation walls, and egress requirements for the assembly use spaces of 'Windows of the World' in WTC Tower 1 and the 'Top of the World' Observation Deck in WTC Tower 2. These areas of concern did not play a significant role in determining the outcomes related to the events on 11th September 2001.]

NIST WTC Recommendation 26.

NIST recommends that state and local jurisdictions adopt and aggressively enforce available provisions in building codes to ensure that egress and sprinkler requirements are met by existing buildings.* Further, occupancy requirements should be modified where needed (such as when there are assembly use spaces within an office building) to meet the requirements in model building codes. Provisions related to egress and sprinkler requirements in existing buildings are available in such codes as the International Existing Building Code (IEBC), International Fire Code, NFPA 1, NFPA 101, and ASME A 17.3. For example, the IEBC defines three levels of building alteration (removal and replacement or covering of existing materials and equipment, reconfiguration of space or system or installation of new equipment, and extending the work area in excess of 50% of the aggregate area of the building). At the lowest level, there are no upgrade implications for sprinklers and the egress system. At the next level, sprinklers are required in work areas serving greater than 30 people if certain other conditions related to building height and use such as shared exits also are met. There are numerous requirements for means of egress, including number of exits, specification of doorsets, dead-end corridors and travel distances, lighting, signage, and handrails. At the highest level, the sprinkler and egress requirements are identical to the second level without the minimum 30-person restriction and the other conditions related to building height and use. The Life Safety Code (NFPA 101) applies retroactively to all buildings, independent of whether any work is currently being done on the building, and ASME A 17.3 applies retroactively to all elevators as a minimum set of requirements.

[ * F-47 The WTC towers were unsprinklered when built. It took nearly 28 years after passage of New York City Local Law 5 in 1973, which required either compartmentation or sprinklering, for the buildings to be fully sprinklered (the Port Authority chose not to use the compartmentation option in Local Law 5). This was about 13 years more than the 15-year period for full compliance with Local Law 5 that was set by Local Law 84 of 1979.]

NIST WTC Recommendation 27.

[ * F-48 The availability of inexpensive electronic storage media and tools for creating large searchable databases makes this feasible.]

NIST WTC Recommendation 28.

NIST recommends that the role of the ‘Design Professional in Responsible Charge’* be clarified to ensure that: (1) all appropriate design professionals (including, e.g. the fire protection engineer) are part of the design team providing the highest standard of care when designing buildings employing innovative or unusual fire safety systems;** and (2) all appropriate design professionals (including, e.g. the structural engineer and the fire protection engineer) are part of the design team providing the highest standard of care when designing the structure to resist fires, in buildings that employ innovative or unusual structural and fire safety systems. Affected Standards: AIA Practice Guidelines. Model Building Codes: The International Building Code (IBC), which already defines ‘Design Professional in Responsible Charge’, should be clarified to address this Recommendation. NFPA 5000 should incorporate the ‘Design Professional in Responsible Charge’ concept, and address this Recommendation.

[ * F-49 In projects involving a design team, the 'Design Professional in Responsible Charge' - usually the lead architect - ensures that the team members use consistent design data and assumptions, co-ordinates overlapping specifications, and serves as the liaison between the enforcement and reviewing officials and the owner. This term is defined in the International Building Code (IBC) and in the International Code Council's Performance Code for Buildings and Facilities (where it is the Principal Design Professional).]

[ ** F-50 If the fire safety concepts in tall buildings had been sufficiently mature in the 1960's, it is possible that the risks associated with jet-fuel ignited multi-floor fires might have been recognized and taken into account when the impact of a Boeing 707 aircraft was considered by the structural engineer during the design of the WTC towers.]

END

NIST WTC Recommendations 21-24 > Improved Firefighting

CJ Walsh — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:54:42 +0000

Previous Posts in This Series …

2011-10-25: NIST’s Recommendations on the 9-11 WTC Building Collapses … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendations 1, 2 & 3 (out of 30)

2011-11-18: NIST WTC Recommendations 4-7 > Structural Fire Endurance … GROUP 2. Enhanced Fire Endurance of Structures – Recommendations 4, 5, 6 & 7

2011-11-24: NIST WTC Recommendations 8-11 > New Design of Structures … GROUP 3. New Methods for Fire Resisting Design of Structures – Recommendations 8, 9, 10 & 11

2011-11-25: NIST WTC Recommendations 12-15 > Improved Active Protection … GROUP 4. Improved Active Fire Protection – Recommendations 12, 13, 14 & 15

2011-11-30: NIST Recommendations 16-20 > Improved People Evacuation … GROUP 5. Improved Building Evacuation – Recommendations 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20

2011-12-04: SOME PRELIMINARY COMMENTS …

1. Such is the pervasively high level of both direct and indirect fire losses, not all of which have yet been identified … that a force of committed firefighters, having sufficient numbers and properly trained and equipped, is a valuable social asset in any community … and one not to be weakened or diluted easily.

2. Lack of discipline among firefighters was an issue during the day of 9-11 (11th September 2011) in New York …

In real life or death situations, however, discipline is essential … but competent and efficient command, control and co-ordination … facilitated by reliable systems of communication (human and electronic) … are critical.

And accurate, real time information about what is happening at a building fire incident of whatever scale … i.e. situation awareness … is a tool which propels forward and encourages the effective functioning of both the firefighter and the user/occupant evacuating the building.

3. A serious gap, internationally … a deep cavern … in the awareness, training and education of firefighters at all levels … is the issue of ‘disability’ and the varying range of abilities in a typical building user/occupant profile.

It is not fully appreciated by firefighters that certain people may die if placed in a standard fireman’s lift position … or, if shouted and screamed at, many people may have no understanding whatever of the firefighter’s intended meaning … or that, in order for everyone to reach a place of safety, it is necessary for firefighters to ensure that safe, accessible routes from the building (i.e. clear of all obstacles, e.g. fire hose lines) are prepared for, thoroughly, in advance of any fire incident … and actually provided should one occur.

Panic attacks during an emergency do exist ! Standard movement times for people evacuating do not exist !! And … firefighters may themselves become impaired during a building fire incident !!!

4. As for building designers … where do I even start ?? Much could, and should, be done in the design and initial construction of a building to assure firefighter safety. But … where does any requirement to consider this issue appear in national building codes/regulations ??

I have already discussed this matter in relation to European Union (EU) Regulation 305/2011 on Construction Products, where such a requirement is contained in Basic Requirement for Construction Works 2: ‘Safety in Case of Fire’ (Annex I).

2005 NIST WTC RECOMMENDATIONS

GROUP 6. Improved Emergency Response

NIST WTC Recommendation 21.

NIST recommends the installation of fire-protected and structurally hardened elevators to improve emergency response activities in tall buildings by providing timely emergency access to responders and allowing evacuation of mobility-impaired building occupants. Such elevators should be installed for exclusive use by emergency responders during emergencies.* In tall buildings, consideration also should be given to installing such elevators for use by all occupants. NIST has found that the physiological impacts on emergency responders of climbing numerous (e.g. 20 or more) storeys makes it difficult to conduct effective and timely firefighting and rescue operations in building emergencies without functioning elevators. The use of elevators for these purposes will require additional operating procedures and protocols, as well as a requirement for release of elevator door restrictors by emergency response personnel.

[ * F-44 The access time for emergency responders, in tall building emergencies where elevators are not functioning and only stairways can be used, averages between 1 minute and 2 minutes per floor, which, for example, corresponds to between 1½ and 2 hours (depending on the amount of gear and equipment carried) to reach the 60th floor of a tall building. Further, the physiological impact on the emergency responders of climbing more than 10 to 12 floors in a tall building makes it difficult for them to immediately begin aggressive firefighting and rescue operations.]

Affected Standards: ASME A 17, ANSI 117.1, NFPA 70, NFPA 101, NFPA 1221, NFPA 1500, NFPA 1561, NFPA 1620, and NFPA 1710. Model Building and Fire Codes: The standards should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 22.

NIST recommends the installation, inspection, and testing of emergency communications systems, radio communications, and associated operating protocols to ensure that the systems and protocols: (1) are effective for large-scale emergencies in buildings with challenging radio frequency propagation environments; and (2) can be used to identify, locate, and track emergency responders within indoor building environments and in the field. The federal government should co-ordinate its efforts that address this need within the framework provided by the SAFECOM programme of the Department of Homeland Security.

a. Rigorous procedures, including pre-emergency inspection and testing, should be developed and implemented for ensuring the operation of emergency communications systems and radio communications in tall buildings and other large structures (including tunnels and subways), or at locations where communications are difficult.

b. Performance requirements should be developed for emergency communications systems and radio communications that are used within buildings or in built-up urban environments, including standards for design, testing, certification, maintenance, and inspection of such systems.

c. An interoperable architecture for emergency communication networks – and associated operating protocols – should be developed for unit operations within and across agencies in large-scale emergencies. The overall network architecture should cover local networking at incident sites, dispatching, and area-wide networks, considering: (a) the scale of needed communications in terms of the number of emergency responders using the system in a large-scale emergency and the organizational hierarchy; and (b) challenges associated with radio frequency propagation, especially in buildings; (c) interoperability with existing legacy emergency communications systems (i.e. between conventional two-way systems and newer wireless network systems); and (d) the need to identify, locate, and track emergency responders at an incident site.

Affected Standards: FCC, SAFECOM, NFPA Standards on Electronic Safety Equipment, NFPA 70, NFPA 297, and NFPA 1221. Model Building Codes: The standards should be adopted in model building codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 23.

NIST recommends the establishment and implementation of detailed procedures and methods for gathering, processing, and delivering critical information through integration of relevant voice, video, graphical, and written data to enhance the situational awareness of all emergency responders. An information intelligence sector* should be established to co-ordinate the effort for each incident.

[ * F-45 A group of individuals that is knowledgeable, experienced, and specifically trained in gathering, processing, and delivering information critical for emergency response operations, and is ready for activation in large and/or dangerous events.]

Affected Standards: National Incident Management System (NIMS), NRP, SAFECOM, FCC, NFPA Standards on Electronic Safety Equipment, NFPA 1221, NFPA 1500, NFPA 1561, NFPA 1620, and NFPA 1710. Model Building Codes: The standards should be adopted in model building codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 24.

b. State, local, and federal emergency operations centres (EOC’s) should be located, designed, built, and operated with security and operational integrity as a key consideration.

END

NIST Recommendations 16-20 > Improved People Evacuation

CJ Walsh — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:01:08 +0000

Previous Posts in This Series …

2011-10-25: NIST’s Recommendations on the 9-11 WTC Building Collapses … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendations 1, 2 & 3 (out of 30)

2011-11-18: NIST WTC Recommendations 4-7 > Structural Fire Endurance … GROUP 2. Enhanced Fire Endurance of Structures – Recommendations 4, 5, 6 & 7

2011-11-24: NIST WTC Recommendations 8-11 > New Design of Structures … GROUP 3. New Methods for Fire Resisting Design of Structures – Recommendations 8, 9, 10 & 11

2011-11-25: NIST WTC Recommendations 12-15 > Improved Active Protection … GROUP 4. Improved Active Fire Protection – Recommendations 12, 13, 14 & 15

2011-11-30: SOME PRELIMINARY COMMENTS …

1. In the First Post of this Series, I wrote …

” As such a high level of performance is expected … indeed demanded … of a Sustainable Building … Sustainable Fire Engineering must be ‘reliability-based’ … in other words, it must have a rational, empirical and scientifically robust basis … “

Sustainable Fire Engineering must also be ‘person-centred’ … i.e. a design process (in whatever architectural or engineering discipline) which places ‘real’ people at the centre of creative endeavours and gives due consideration to their responsible needs, and their health, safety, welfare and security in the Human Environment.

In order to prolong, and if at all possible, significantly extend the Life Cycle of a Sustainable Building beyond 100 years … Fire Engineers must begin to feel at ease … and be comfortable … with the following mainstream Sustainable Design Concepts …

Flexibility: The extent to which a building interior is designed, when new, to be capable of being easily modified at any later stage during the life cycle of that building – with minimal cost and user inconvenience – because of a person’s changing living or working needs.

Adaptability: The extent to which a building, or a building component, is designed when new, or capable of being easily modified at any later stage, to meet the changing life and living needs of the broad range of potential users, who may or may not have activity limitations, or may develop a health condition during the life cycle of that building or component.

Accessibility of a Building: Ease of independent approach, entry, egress (during normal ambient conditions), evacuation (in the event of an emergency) and/or use of a building and its services and facilities, by all of the building’s potential users - with an assurance of individual health, safety and welfare during the course of those activities.

2. Group 5 of the 2005 NIST WTC Recommendations is, by far, the most important … introducing some innovative concepts of ‘real’ evacuation … with nothing too startling. Contrary to the impression given by NIST … these Recommendations are equally valid for complex building types and, in reality, for all but the most simple of low-rise buildings. It is interesting to note, however, that when discussing fire behaviour or structural performance in fire, for example … the NIST texts are confident and direct. Here, when dealing with ‘people’ issues … not so confident, prone to some rambling … and lacking clarity.

Shortly after the 2005 NIST Report (NCSTAR 1) was published, I stated the following on the SDI Corporate WebSite … at this FireOx International Page … http://www.sustainable-design.ie/fire/structdesfire.htm …

” In its treatment of ‘disability’ and ‘people with activity limitations’, the Report does not go far enough, and is seriously flawed.”

Let me explain why …

As you go scan down through NIST’s Recommendations 16-20, you will encounter 1 reference to ‘mobility impaired occupants’ and 2 references to the impersonal ‘mobility impaired’. IF (and that is still a very big ‘if’, because there is still so much rabid resistance to this topic !) … a New Post-9/11 Evacuation Model, or Construct, Dealing with ‘Disability’ is being developed … all of the major impairment groupings (i.e. visual impairment, hearing impairment, physical function impairment, mental/cognitive impairment, and psychological impairment) must be added to the mix from the beginning. In other words, our proper focus of attention must be ‘people with activity limitations’ … not just people with disabilities, but also frail older people (not all older people !), children under the age of 5 years, women in the later stages of pregnancy, people with a health condition, etc.

And … because of the social stigma still firmly attaching to ‘disability’ … many building occupants/users will not self-identify … not even if their lives depend on it !

Concentrating on one group only, i.e. people with mobility impairments, is simplistic and entirely inadequate … and we will all end up, in a few years time, having to graft on a consideration of the other impairment groups.

This is exactly what has already gone wrong with the development of Accessibility Design Guidance during the last 30 years … where ‘people with visual or hearing impairments’ received merely token attention … and ‘people with cognitive or psychological impairments’ received no attention at all ! And … we are now grappling with the challenge of having to graft on additional texts to try to re-balance International Design Guidance on Accessibility of the Built Environment. Been there – done that – I have all of the t-shirts !!

People with Activity Limitations (English) / Personnes à Performances Réduites (French): Those people, of all ages, who are unable to perform, independently and without aid, basic human activities or tasks – because of a health condition or physical/mental/cognitive/psychological impairment of a permanent or temporary nature.

The above Terms (in English and French) include …

wheelchair users ;
people who experience difficulty in walking, with or without a facilitation aid, e.g. stick, crutch, calliper or walking frame ;
frail, older people ;
the very young (people under the age of 5 years) ;
people who suffer from arthritis, asthma, or a heart condition ;
the visually and/or hearing impaired ;
people who have a cognitive impairment disorder, including dementia, amnesia, brain injury, or delirium ;
women in the later stages of pregnancy ;
people impaired following the use of alcohol, other ‘social’ drugs e.g. cocaine and heroin, and some medicines ;
people who suffer any partial or complete loss of language related abilities, i.e. aphasia ;
people impaired following exposure to environmental pollution and/or other irresponsible human activities, e.g. war and terrorism ;

and …

people who experience a panic attack in a fire situation or other emergency ;
people, including firefighters, who suffer incapacitation as a result of exposure, during a fire, to poisonous or toxic substances, and/or elevated temperatures.

3. So … what provision should be made for ‘people with activity limitations’ in typical Fire Engineering Design Projects ?

Equivalent to the concept of Maximum Credible Fire Scenario, which has already been discussed in this Series … at FireOx International, some years ago, we developed the concept of …

Maximum Credible User Scenario

Representing building user conditions which are also severe but reasonable to anticipate …

a) 10% of People Using the Building (occupants, visitors and other users) have an Impairment (visual or hearing, physical function, mental or cognitive, psychological, with some impairments not being identifiable) ;

[ This performance indicator appears in ISO FDIS 21542: 'Building Construction - Accessibility & Usability of the Built Environment', which will soon be published.]

b) The Number of People Using a Building increases, on occasions which cannot be specified, to 120% of designed/calculated maximum building capacity.

[ Generally ... the fire safety related texts contained in ISO 21542 are based on the 2005 & 2008 NIST WTC Recommendations.]

4. With regard to Recommendation 17 below, and NIST’s reference to the widths of evacuation staircases and door openings, etc … fire codes and regulations, fire authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ’s), and even the fire services themselves … still have a crazy mixed-up approach to defining the width of these building features … an approach which I am not even going to attempt to repeat ! Forget it !!

Without Exception … all understandings of Evacuation Route Width, Evacuation Staircase Width and Evacuation Door Opening Width … must be harmonized with the following definitions of Unobstructed Width …

Unobstructed Width – General

Free, unobstructed space – clear of all obstacles below a height of 2.1 metres above finished floor level – necessary for passage along a circulation route, or other route component, e.g. a staircase.

[ For example ... the Unobstructed Width of a Staircase is the clear dimension from the edge of one handrail to the edge of the opposite handrail ... and there is always a continuous handrail on each side of an evacuation staircase ! ]

Unobstructed Width – Door Opening

Free, unobstructed space – clear of all obstacles below a height of 2.0 metres above finished floor level – necessary for passage through a door opening, measured when the door leaf is opened to an angle of 90°, or when a sliding or folding door leaf is opened to its fullest extent.

[ For example ... the Unobstructed Width of a Door Opening is the dimension from the edge of the door leaf (when open at an angle of 90°) to the nearest edge of the door frame.]

This FireOx International Page on the SDI Corporate WebSite provides more guidance … http://www.sustainable-design.ie/fire/appendixd.htm

5. With regard to Recommendation 20 below, and NIST’s reference to allowing “all occupants an equal opportunity for evacuation” … this is not just a ‘nice idea’, or an ‘idealistic notion’ … this is now a Human and Social Right which is backed up and supported by International Law ! And … it is no longer acceptable for the Fire Science and Engineering Community to continue its stubborn resistance in the face of this fact !!

For the benefit of my fire engineering colleagues … I will, once again here, reproduce the most relevant extracts from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities …

UN CRPD Preamble Paragraph (g)

Emphasizing the importance of mainstreaming disability issues as an integral part of relevant strategies of sustainable development, …

UN CRPD Article 9 – Accessibility

1. To enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation, to information and communications, including information and communications technologies and systems, and to other facilities and services open or provided to the public, both in urban and in rural areas. These measures, which shall include the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility, shall apply to, inter alia:

(a) Buildings, roads, transportation and other indoor and outdoor facilities, including schools, housing, medical facilities and workplaces ;

(b) Information, communications and other services, including electronic services and emergency services.

2. States Parties shall also take appropriate measures:

(a) To develop, promulgate and monitor the implementation of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to the public ;

(b) To ensure that private entities that offer facilities and services which are open or provided to the public take into account all aspects of accessibility for persons with disabilities ;

(c) To provide training for stakeholders on accessibility issues facing persons with disabilities ;

(d) To provide in buildings and other facilities open to the public signage in Braille and in easy to read and understand forms ;

(e) To provide forms of live assistance and intermediaries, including guides, readers and professional sign language interpreters, to facilitate accessibility to buildings and other facilities open to the public ;

(f) To promote other appropriate forms of assistance and support to persons with disabilities to ensure their access to information ;

(g) To promote access for persons with disabilities to new information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet ;

(h) To promote the design, development, production and distribution of accessible information and communications technologies and systems at an early stage, so that these technologies and systems become accessible at minimum cost.

UN CRPD Article 11 – Situations of Risk & Humanitarian Emergencies

States Parties shall take, in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and the occurrence of natural disasters.

[ Note: An outbreak of fire in a building is a situation of serious risk for all vulnerable building occupants/users.]

At the time of writing, 153 Countries had signed the UN CRPD … while 106 Countries have ratified the Convention and are, therefore, the ‘State Parties’ referred to above.

These are just a few of the State Parties to the UN CRPD …

Argentina (ratified the UN CRPD, 2008-09-02)
Australia (ratified the UN CRPD, 2008-07-17)
Brazil (ratified the UN CRPD, 2008-08-01)
Canada (ratified the UN CRPD, 2010-03-11)
China (ratified the UN CRPD, 2008-08-01)
Cuba (ratified the UN CRPD, 2007-09-06)
European Union (ratified the UN CRPD, 2010-12-23)
India (ratified the UN CRPD, 2007-10-01)
Malaysia (ratified the UN CRPD, 2010-07-19)
Mexico (ratified the UN CRPD, 2007-12-17)
Philippines (ratified the UN CRPD, 2008-04-15)
South Africa (ratified the UN CRPD, 2007-11-30)
Turkey (ratified the UN CRPD, 2009-09-28)
United Arab Emirates (ratified the UN CRPD, 2010-03-19)

I wonder how implementation is proceeding in these countries !?!

2005 NIST WTC RECOMMENDATIONS

GROUP 5. Improved Building Evacuation

Building evacuation should be improved to include system designs that facilitate safe and rapid egress, methods for ensuring clear and timely emergency communications to occupants, better occupant preparedness regarding their roles and duties for evacuation during emergencies, and incorporation of appropriate egress technologies.*

[ * F-36 This effort should include standards and guidelines for the development and evaluation of emergency evacuation plans, including best practices for both partial and full evacuation, and the development of contingency plans that account for expected conditions that may require adaptation, including the compromise of all or part of an egress path before or during evacuation, or conditions such as widespread power failure, earthquake, or security threat that restrict egress from the building. Evacuation planning should include the process from initial notification of the need to evacuate up to the point when occupants arrive at a place where their safety is ensured. These standards and guidelines should be suitable for assessing the adequacy of evacuation plans submitted for approval, and should require occupant training through the conduct of regular drills.]

NIST WTC Recommendation 16.

NIST recommends that public agencies, non-profit organizations concerned with building and fire safety, and building owners and managers develop and carry out public education and training campaigns, jointly and on a nationwide scale, to improve building occupants’ preparedness for evacuation in case of building emergencies. This effort should include better training and self-preparation of occupants, an effectively implemented system of floor wardens and building safety personnel, and needed improvements to standards. Occupant preparedness should include:

a. Improved training and drills for building occupants to ensure that they know evacuation procedures for a variety of emergency scenarios (e.g. including evacuation and shelter in place), are familiar with the egress route, and are sufficiently aware of what is necessary if evacuation is required with minimal notice (e.g. footwear consistent with the distance to be travelled, a flashlight/glow stick for pathway illumination, and dust masks).

b. Building owners and managers should educate tenants on the life safety systems present in their building(s), provide training materials explaining egress routes and stairwell and elevator information, and develop educational programmes explaining the most appropriate responses in emergency situations. It is further recommended that the owners and managers of office buildings implement the necessary systems for collecting and storing the training history of each building occupant.

c. Improved training and drills that routinely inform building occupants that roof rescue is not (or is) presently feasible as a standard evacuation option, that they should evacuate down the stairs in any full-building evacuation unless explicitly instructed otherwise by on-site incident commanders, and that elevators can be used if they are still in service and haven’t been recalled or stopped.

d. Improved codes, laws, and regulations that do not restrict or impede building occupants during evacuation drills from familiarizing themselves with the detailed layout of alternative egress routes for a full building evacuation.*

[ * F-37 New York City Local Law 5 prohibits requiring occupants to practice stairwell evacuation during drills.]

Affected Standard: ICC/ANSI A117-1. Model Building and Fire Codes: The standard should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard. Affected Organizations: NFPA, NIBS, NCSBCS, BOMA, and CTBUH.

NIST WTC Recommendation 17.

NIST recommends that tall buildings be designed to accommodate timely full building evacuation of occupants when required in building-specific or large-scale emergencies such as widespread power outages, major earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes without sufficient advance warning, fires, explosions, and terrorist attack. Building size, population, function, and iconic status should be taken into account in designing the egress system. Stairwell capacity and stair discharge door opening width* should be adequate to accommodate contraflow due to emergency access by responders.

[ * F-38 Egress capacity should be based on an all-hazards approach that considers the number and width of stairs (and door openings) as well as the possible use of scissor stairs credited as a single stair.]

a. Improved egress analysis models, design methodology, and supporting data should be developed to achieve a target evacuation performance (e.g. time for full building evacuation*) for the design building population by considering the building and egress system designs, and human factors such as occupant size, mobility status, stairwell tenability conditions, visibility, and congestion.

[ * F-39 Use of egress models is required to estimate the egress capacity for a range of different evacuation strategies, including full building evacuation. NIST found that the average surviving occupant in the WTC towers descended stairwells at about half the slowest speed previously measured for non-emergency evacuations.]

b. To the degree possible, mobility impaired occupants should be provided a means for self-evacuation in the event of a building emergency. Current strategies (and law) generally require the mobility impaired to shelter in place. New procedures, which provide redundancy in the event that the floor warden system or co-worker assistance (i.e. a buddy system) fails, should consider full building evacuation, and may include use of fire-protected and structurally hardened elevators,* motorized evacuation technology (e.g. a battery-operated evacuation chair), and/or dedicated communication technologies for the mobility impaired.

[ * F-40 Elevators should be explicitly designed to provide protection against large, but conventional, building fires. Fire-protected elevators also should be structurally hardened to withstand the range of foreseeable building-specific or large-scale emergencies. While progress has been made in developing the requirements and technologies for fire-protected elevators, similar criteria and designs for structurally hardened elevators remain to be developed.]

c. If protected/hardened elevators are provided for emergency responders but become unusable during an emergency, due to a malfunction or a conventional threat whose magnitude exceeds the magnitude considered in design, sufficient stairwell capacity should be provided to ensure timely emergency responder access to buildings that are undergoing full evacuation. Such capacity could be provided either via dedicated stairways for fire service use or by building sufficient stairway capacity (i.e. number and width of stairways and/or use of scissor stairs credited as a single stair) to accommodate the evacuation of building occupants while allowing access to emergency responders with minimal hindrance from occupant contraflow.

d. The egress allowance in assembly use spaces should be limited in state and local laws and regulations to no more than a doubling of the stairway capacity for the provision of a horizontal exit on a floor, as is the case now in the national model codes.* The use of a horizontal exit creates an area of refuge with a 2 hour fire rated separation, at least one stair on each side, and sufficient space for the expected occupant load.

[ * F-41 The New York City Building Code permits a doubling of allowed stair capacity when one area of refuge is provided on a floor, and a tripling of stair capacity for two or more areas of refuge on a floor. In the world after 11 September 2001, it is difficult to predict: (1) if, and for how long, occupants will be willing to wait in a refuge area before entering an egress stairway; and (2) what the impact would be of such a large group of people moving down the stairs on the orderly evacuation of lower floors.]

Affected Standards: NFPA 101, ASME A 17. Model Building and Fire Codes: The standards should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 18.

NIST recommends that egress systems be designed: (1) to maximize remoteness of egress components (i.e. stairs, elevators, exits) without negatively impacting on average travel distances; (2) to maintain their functional integrity and survivability under foreseeable building-specific or large-scale emergencies; and (3) with consistent layouts, standard signage, and guidance so that systems become intuitive and obvious to building occupants during evacuations.

a. Within a safety-based design hierarchy that should be developed, highest priority should be assigned to maintain the functional integrity, survivability, and remoteness of egress components and active fire protection systems (sprinklers, standpipes, associated water supply, fire alarms, and smoke management systems). The design hierarchy should consider the many systems (e.g. stairs, elevators, active fire protection, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and structural) and system components, as well as functional integrity, tenant access, emergency responder access, building configuration, security, and structural design.

b. The design, functional integrity, and survivability of the egress and other life safety systems (e.g. stairwell and elevator shafts, and active fire protection systems) should be enhanced by considering accidental structural loads such as those induced by overpressures (e.g. gas explosions), impacts, or major hurricanes and earthquakes, in addition to fire separation requirements. In selected buildings, structural loads due to other risks such as those due to terrorism may need to be considered. While NIST does not believe that buildings should be designed for aircraft impact, as the last line of defence for life safety, the stairwells and elevator shafts individually, or the core if these egress components are contained within the core, should have adequate structural integrity to withstand accidental structural loads and anticipated risks.

c. Stairwell remoteness requirements should be met by a physical separation of the stairwells that provide a barrier to both fire and accidental structural loads. Maximizing stairwell remoteness, without negatively impacting on average travel distances, would allow a stairwell to maintain its structural integrity independent of any other stairwell that is subject to accidental loads, even if the stairwells are located within the same structural barrier such as the core. The current ‘walking path’ measurement allows stairwells to be physically next to each other, separated only by a fire barrier. Reducing the clustering of stairways that also contain standpipe water systems provides the fire service with increased options for formulating firefighting strategies. This should not preclude the use of scissor stairs* as a means of increasing stair capacity – provided the scissor stair is only credited as a single stair.

[ * F-42 Two separate stairways within the same enclosure and separated by a fire rated partition.]

d. Egress systems should have consistent layouts with standard signage and guidance so that the systems become intuitive and obvious to all building occupants, including visitors, during evacuations. Particular consideration should be given to unexpected deviations in the stairwells (e.g. floors with transfer hallways).

Affected Standard: NFPA 101. Model Building and Fire Codes: The standard should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 19.

NIST recommends that building owners, managers, and emergency responders develop a joint plan and take steps to ensure that accurate emergency information is communicated in a timely manner to enhance the situational awareness of building occupants and emergency responders affected by an event. This should be accomplished through better co-ordination of information among different emergency responder groups, efficient sharing of that information among building occupants and emergency responders, more robust design of emergency public address systems, improved emergency responder communication systems, and use of the Emergency Broadcast System (now known as the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System) and Community Emergency Alert Networks.

a. Situational awareness of building occupants and emergency responders in the form of information and event knowledge should be improved through better co-ordination of such information among emergency responder groups (9-1-1 dispatch, fire department or police department dispatch, emergency management dispatch, site security, and appropriate federal agencies), efficient sharing and communication of information between building occupants and emergency responders, and improved emergency responder communication systems (i.e. including effective communication within steel and reinforced concrete buildings, capacity commensurate with the scale of operations, and interoperability among different communication systems.

b. The emergency communications systems in buildings should be designed with sufficient robustness and redundancy to continue providing public address announcements or instructions in foreseeable building-specific or large-scale emergencies, including widespread power outage, major earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, and accidental explosions. Consideration should be given to placement of building announcement speakers in stairways in addition to other standard locations.

c. The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) should be activated and used, especially during large-scale emergencies, as a means to rapidly and widely communicate information to building occupants and emergency responders to enhance their situational awareness and assist with evacuation.

d. Local jurisdictions (cities and counties or boroughs) should seriously consider establishing a Community Emergency Alert Network (CEAN), within the framework of IPAWS, and make it available to the citizens and emergency responders of their jurisdictions to enhance situational awareness in emergencies.* The network should deliver important emergency alerts, information and real time updates to all electronic communication systems or devices registered with the CEAN. These devices may include e-mail accounts, cell/mobile phones, text pagers, satellite phones, and wireless PDA’s.

[ * F-43 Types of emergency communications could include life safety information, severe weather warnings, disaster notifications (including information on terrorist attacks), directions for self-protection, locations of nearest available shelters, precautionary evacuation information, identification of available evacuation routes, and accidents or obstructions associated with roadways and utilities.]

Affected Standard: NFPA 101, and/or a new standard. Model Building and Fire Codes: The standard should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard to the extent it is within the scope of building and fire codes.

NIST WTC Recommendation 20.

NIST recommends that the full range of current and next generation evacuation technologies should be evaluated for future use, including protected/hardened elevators, exterior escape devices, and stairwell descent devices, which may allow all occupants an equal opportunity for evacuation and facilitate emergency response access. Affected Standards: NFPA 101, ASME A 17, ASTM E 06, ANSI A117.1. Model Building and Fire Codes: The standards should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

END

NIST WTC Recommendations 12-15 > Improved Active Protection

CJ Walsh — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:52:35 +0000

Previous Posts in This Series …

2011-10-25: NIST’s Recommendations on the 9-11 WTC Building Collapses … GROUP 1. Increased Structural Integrity – Recommendations 1, 2 & 3 (out of 30)

2011-11-18: NIST WTC Recommendations 4-7 > Structural Fire Endurance … GROUP 2. Enhanced Fire Endurance of Structures – Recommendations 4, 5, 6 & 7

2011-11-24: NIST WTC Recommendations 8-11 > New Design of Structures … GROUP 3. New Methods for Fire Resisting Design of Structures – Recommendations 8, 9, 10 & 11

2011-11-25: SOME PRELIMINARY COMMENTS …

1. Reliability has always been an issue with Active Fire Protection Systems … but, it is neither acknowledged, nor fully understood, that … Reliability Is Equally An Issue With Passive Fire Protection Measures !

Furthermore, the following should always be taken into account when considering the Safety Factors to be applied in calculating the level of satisfactory fire safety and protection which is provided in a specific project … one of the design objectives in Ethical Fire Engineering.

For example, if Category C below is indicative of the design and construction quality on a particular building site … just think of the Priory Hall Apartment Development in Dublin (!) … the Safety Factors to be applied in the design should be high … and with regard to actual construction, it should be expected that the Reliability of both Active Fire Protection Systems and Passive Fire Protection Measures will be initially low … with Life Cycle Reliability being entirely non-existent.

Quality of Fire Engineering Design & Related Construction

Category A

(a) Design of the works is exercised by an independent, appropriately qualified and experienced architect/engineer/fire engineer, with design competence relating to fire safety and protection in buildings … and, most importantly, that he/she interacts directly with the Project Design Professional in Responsible Charge ;

(b) Installation/fitting of related construction products/systems is exercised by appropriately qualified and experienced personnel, with construction competence relating to fire safety and protection in buildings ;

(c) Supervision of the works is exercised by appropriately qualified and experienced personnel from the principal construction organization ;

(d) Regular inspections, by appropriately qualified and experienced personnel familiar with the design, and independent of the construction organization(s), are carried out to verify that the works are being executed in accordance with the fire engineering design.

Category B

(a) Design of the works is exercised by an independent, appropriately qualified and experienced architect/engineer/fire engineer ;

(b) Installation/fitting of fire-related construction products/systems is exercised by appropriately qualified and experienced personnel ;

(c) Supervision of the works is exercised by appropriately qualified and experienced personnel from the principal construction organization.

Category C

This level of design and construction execution is assumed when the requirements for Category A or Category B are not met.

2. With regard to Recommendations 12 & 13 below … in an earlier post in this series, and elsewhere, I have defined Disproportionate Damage … and differentiated that structural concept from the related concept of Fire-Induced Progressive Collapse.

A significant number of countries include a requirement on Resistance to Disproportionate Damage in their national building codes. Often, it is only necessary to consider this requirement in the case of buildings having 5 Storeys, or more … a completely arbitrary height threshold. I would consider that adequately tying together the horizontal and vertical structural elements of a building … any building … is a fundamental principle of good structural engineering !!

Putting it simply … for the purpose of showing compliance with this structural requirement … it is necessary to demonstrate that a building will remain structurally stable if a portion of the building’s structure is removed … always remembering that every building comprises both structure and fabric, i.e. non-structure.

In reality this may happen, and quite often does happen, when, for example, a large truck runs into the side of a building, which can happen anywhere … or there is a gas explosion in some part of the building, which happened in Dublin’s Raglan House back in 1987, and many times in other countries … or a plane hits a high-rise building, which happened to Milan’s iconic Pirelli Tower in 2002, and to New York’s Empire State Building way back in 1945 … etc., etc. Raglan House collapsed … the Pirelli Tower and the Empire State Building did not.

[ The World Trade Center Towers were originally designed to absorb the impact of a large plane and to remain structurally stable afterwards ... in ambient conditions. However, what was not considered in the ambient structural design was 'fire', i.e. the fuel tanks were empty and no fire in the building would be initiated as a result of the mechanical damage caused by the plane impact ... which, on 11 September 2001, proved to be a ridiculous basis for any structural design ! This is why 9-11 should be regarded, at its core, as being a very serious 'real' fire incident.]

What I am leading up to is this … the concept of removing a portion of a building, and it remaining structurally stable afterwards … should now – logically and rationally – also be incorporated into the fire engineering design of Active Fire Protection Systems. In other words, if a portion of a building is removed, will any particular Active Fire Protection System continue to operate effectively in the rest of the building ? This has implications for the location and adequate protection of critical system components in a building … and for the necessary redundancy, zoning and back-up alternative routeing which must be designed into the system from the beginning !

2005 NIST WTC RECOMMENDATIONS

GROUP 4. Improved Active Fire Protection

NIST WTC Recommendation 12.

NIST recommends that the performance and possibly the redundancy of active fire protection systems (sprinklers, standpipes/hoses, fire alarms, and smoke management systems) in buildings be enhanced to accommodate the greater risks associated with increasing building height and population, increased use of open spaces, high-risk building activities, fire department response limits, transient fuel loads, and higher threat profile. The performance attributes should deal realistically with the system design basis, reliability of automatic/manual operations, redundancy, and reduction of vulnerabilities due to single point failures. Affected Standards: NFPA 13, NFPA 14, NFPA 20, NFPA 72, NFPA 90A, NFPA 92A, NFPA 92B, and NFPA 101. Model Building Codes: The performance standards should be adopted in model building codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 13.

NIST recommends that fire alarm and communications systems in buildings be developed to provide continuous, reliable, and accurate information on the status of life safety conditions at a level of detail sufficient to manage the evacuation process in building fire emergencies; all communication and control paths in buildings need to be designed and installed to have the same resistance to failure and increased survivability above that specified in present standards. This should include means to maintain communications with evacuating occupants that can both reassure them and redirect them if conditions change. Pre-installed fire warden telephone systems can serve a useful purpose and may be installed in buildings and, if so, they should be made available for use by emergency responders. All communication and control paths in buildings need to be designed and installed to have the same resistance to failure and increased survivability above that specified in present standards. Affected Standards: NFPA 1, NFPA 72, and NFPA 101. Model Building and Fire Codes: The performance standards should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 14.

NIST recommends that control panels at fire/emergency command stations in buildings be adapted to accept and interpret a larger quantity of more reliable information from the active fire protection systems that provide tactical decision aids to fire ground commanders, including water flow rates from pressure and flow measurement devices, and that standards for their performance be developed. Affected Standards: NFPA 1, NFPA 72, and NFPA 101. Model Building and Fire Codes: The performance standards should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

NIST WTC Recommendation 15.

NIST recommends that systems be developed and implemented for: (1) real time off-site secure transmission of valuable information from fire alarm and other monitored building systems for use by emergency responders, at any location, to enhance situational awareness and response decisions, and maintain safe and efficient operation;* and (2) preservation of that information either off-site, or in a black box that will survive a fire or other building failure, for purposes of subsequent investigations and analysis. Standards for the performance of such systems should be developed, and their use should be required. Affected Standards: NFPA 1, NFPA 72, and NFPA 101. Model Building and Fire Codes: The performance standards should be adopted in model building and fire codes by mandatory reference to, or incorporation of, the latest edition of the standard.

[ * F-35 The alarm systems in the WTC towers were only capable of determining and displaying: (a) areas that had at some time reached alarm point conditions; and (b) areas that had not. The quality and reliability of information available to emergency responders at the Fire Command Station was not sufficient to understand the fire conditions. The only information transmitted outside the buildings was the fact that the buildings had gone into alarm. Further, the fire alarm system in WTC Building 7, which was transmitted to a monitoring service, was on 'test mode' during the morning of 11 September 2001, because routine maintenance was being performed. Under test mode conditions: (1) the system is typically disabled for the entire building, not just for the area where work is being performed; and (2) alarm signals typically do not show up on an operator console.]

END

Sustainable Fire Engineering – IABSE Lecture 1 December 2011

CJ Walsh — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:07:15 +0000

2011-11-14 …

On Thursday evening, 1st December 2011, at 19.00 hrs … in the Dublin Institute of Technology … I will present an IABSE-Ireland Sponsored Lecture on the subject: ‘Sustainable Fire Engineering IS THE FUTURE !’.

This Presentation has been in continuous development across a snaking international path … Dubayy (UAE) in 2008 … Lund (Sweden) and Bengaluru (India) in 2009 … Dilli (India), Zurich (Switzerland) and Dublin (Ireland) in 2010 … Paris (France), the IFE’s International Fire Conference in Cardiff (Wales) and the ASFP-Ireland Fire Seminar in 2011 … and on 1 December next, in Dublin, I will be introducing some tough new realities for fire engineering generally … not just in Ireland …

Colour photograph showing the impact of witnessing the 9-11 WTC Incident in New York. Sustainable Fire Engineering must be 'reliability-based' & 'person-centred'. But ... do building designers, including fire engineers, actually understand that the people who use their buildings are 'individuals' ... each having a different range of abilities ? Photograph by Marty Lederhandler/AP. Click to enlarge.

IABSE Irish National Group Sponsored Lecture

Dublin Institute of Technology, Bolton Street – Michael O’Donnell Room (259)

Thursday, 1 December 2011 @ 19.00 hrs / 7.00 p.m.

CJ Walsh: Sustainable Fire Engineering IS THE FUTURE ! (Lecture Flyer, PDF File, 259 kb)

The aim of Sustainable Fire Engineering is to realize a safe and sustainable built environment.

Responding ethically, in built and/or wrought form, to the still evolving concept of sustainable human and social development … a principal objective of Sustainable Fire Engineering is to design for maximum credible fire and user scenarios … in order to maintain a proper and satisfactory level of fire safety and protection over the full life cycle of, for example, a building … and for a Sustainable Building, that life cycle is 100 years minimum.

Sustainable Fire Engineering must, therefore, be ‘reliability-based’ & ‘person-centred’.

This presentation will examine the authentic language and meaning of sustainability … and will then track how this impacts on the professional practice of fire engineering. Special mention will be made of Fire-Induced Progressive Collapse.

See you all there ! And I will be looking forward to a lot of challenging feedback on the night !!

END

Complaints to the UN Disability Rights Convention Committee

CJ Walsh — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:08:28 +0000

2011-11-14: At the time of writing, this was the up-to-date position regarding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) …

Convention … 153 Signatories … 106 Ratifications

Optional Protocol … 90 Signatories … 63 Ratifications

For reasons which can sometimes be complex … individuals and disability-related organizations are reluctant to make valid complaints … at local, regional or national levels in their countries.

This must stop ! If nobody complains … nothing will change !!

The following documents should now be used as a Proper Model for Making a Complaint … at any level. And should all domestic remedies be exhausted at national level in a State Party … you will have saved yourself a lot of time and energy, should you decide to take matters further … because the complaint will already be in the correct CRPD format …

Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – 15 June 2011

UN CRPD/C/5/2 – Fact Sheet on the Procedure for Submitting Communications to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities under the Optional Protocol to the Convention (PDF File, 41 kb)

UN CRPD/C/5/3 – Guidelines for Submission of Communications to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities under the Optional Protocol to the Convention (PDF File, 47.5 kb)

END

Public Procurement & ‘Design for All’ – It’s Crunch Time, Folks !

CJ Walsh — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:41:15 +0000

2011-10-12 & 2011-10-17: Close your eyes … and imagine, for a split second, the value and material extent of all the Public Procurement Contracts being tendered for and awarded each week, throughout Europe. ‘Enormous’ is the only appropriate word which must spring to your mind ! If you don’t believe me, check out the statistics for yourself !! And that value is going to keep increasing !!!

The European Commission has recently proposed that suitable instruments be developed which will permit the operation of the Accessibility / Design for All Requirements in EU Public Procurement Directives to commence, with full effect. This process is proving to be problematic … and it is certainly not as open and transparent as it should be.

Leaving aside the utilities sectors (water, energy, transport and postal services) … recall that EU Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 31 March 2004, on the Co-Ordination of Procedures for the Award of Public Works Contracts, Public Supply Contracts and Public Service Contracts had to be implemented, at national level in all of the EU Member States, no later than 31 January 2006. This Directive was amended, in a minor way, by Directives 2005/51/EC and 2005/75/EC. In spite of these amendments, 31 January 2006 remained the target date for national implementation.

[ Ireland's national implementing legislation ... European Communities (Award of Public Authorities' Contracts) Regulations 2006 ... came into operation on 22 June 2006.]

In addition, each Member State had to ensure that Directive 2004/18/EC was properly implemented by using effective, available and transparent Monitoring Mechanisms.

With regard to specific rules governing specifications and contract documents … Article 23.1 of Directive 2004/18/EC stated, and still does state …

‘ The technical specifications as defined in point 1 of Annex VI shall be set out in the contract documentation, such as contract notices, contract documents or additional documents. Whenever possible these technical specifications should be defined so as to take into account accessibility criteria for people with disabilities or design for all users.’

Not the strongest possible language to encourage ‘accessibility’ … there’s nothing quite like a shall to concentrate minds !

[ However, in Ireland ... with regard to the same specific rules governing specifications and contract documents ... Section 23 (2) of the European Communities (Award of Public Authorities' Contracts) Regulations 2006 states ...

' In awarding a public contract, a contracting authority shall, as far as practicable, ensure that the technical specifications for the contract take account of the need to prescribe accessibility criteria for all persons who are likely to use the relevant works, products or service, particularly those who have disabilities.' ]

As already discussed in my post, dated 2 November 2010 … many people in the European Union Institutions would prefer to steer completely away from the Social Aspects of Sustainable Human and Social Development … fuzzy areas, not capable of easy quantification … leaving small, peripheral groups in the Institutions (neither well connected to the mainstream, nor fully aware of the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of that mainstream) to look after the Social Aspects.

Public Procurement in the European Union (EU)

The Award of Public Works Contracts, Public Supply Contracts and Public Service Contracts concluded in the EU Member States on behalf of State, Regional or Local Authorities and other bodies governed by public law entities, is subject to the respect of Principles enshrined in the EU Treaties and, in particular, to …

the principle of freedom of movement of goods ;
the principle of freedom of establishment ;
the principle of freedom to provide services ; and
the principles deriving therefrom, such as the principle of equal treatment, the principle of non-discrimination, the principle of mutual recognition, the principle of proportionality and the principle of transparency.

For Public Contracts Above A Certain Value … it has been deemed necessary to draw up provisions of Community Co-Ordination of National Procedures for the award of such contracts, which are based on these principles so as to ensure the effects of them and to guarantee the opening-up of public procurement to competition.

- Adapted from Preamble Paragraph #2, EU Directive 2004/18/EC

Is Europe Serious about Implementing the Public Procurement Accessibility / Design for All Requirements ?

Before looking at how Accessibility / Design for All is being handled within the fast evolving European Public Procurement Framework … it is sobering to compare and contrast how DG Environment (ENV), in the European Commission, is promoting and actively supporting Green Public Procurement, i.e. Public Procurement which is environment-friendly … http://ec.europa.eu/environment/gpp/index_en.htm … no messing about there !

If we (speaking as a European) are serious, therefore, about the ‘real’ implementation of Accessibility for All / Design for All / Inclusive Design / Universal Design / Barrier-Free Design in the Built Environment … it is of fundamental importance that an easily assimilated Standard (as defined in Paragraph #2, ANNEX VI of Directive 2004/18/EC) be produced ‘on the table’ for reference by Public Contracting Authorities … NOW !!!

Built Environment: Anywhere there is, or has been, a man-made or wrought (worked) intervention in the natural environment, e.g. cities, towns, villages, rural settlements, service utilities, transport systems, roads, bridges, tunnels, and cultivated lands, lakes, rivers, coasts, and seas, etc … including the Virtual Environment.

Virtual Environment: A designed environment, electronically generated from within the built environment, which may have the appearance, form, functionality and impact – to the person perceiving and actually experiencing it – of a real, imagined and/or utopian world.

The Built and Virtual Environments continue to merge into a new Augmented Reality.

A comprehensive document capable of answering a major portion of Europe’s current needs in this area is on the verge of being published as a full International Standard … ISO 21542: ‘Building Construction – Accessibility & Usability of the Built Environment’. And … as is the case with hundreds of ISO Standards in other sectors, this standard could easily be approved by CEN, one of Europe’s Standards Organisations, as an EN (European Standard) … under the Vienna Agreement on Technical Co-Operation between ISO and CEN, which was confirmed by both organizations in 2001 … and the period to practical application of ISO 21542 on the ground would be relatively swift.

Every delay represents not only a precious opportunity missed to improve the Accessibility of the Built Environment … but another blatant Denial of Human and Social Rights to vulnerable groups of people in all our communities !

Yes, this document was badly managed at the beginning of its very long gestation period, and its contents were a bit of a mess for the first few years … AND European countries were indignant, then, at the prospect of it becoming a European Standard. However, walking around any major city in any country in Europe today, and witnessing the universally appalling and miserable efforts at Accessibility Implementation … you would have to be outraged at the level of hypocrisy and blatant self-delusion practiced by Europeans !

BUT NOW … ISO FDIS 21542 … the Final Draft of the International Standard which was issued for voting, beginning on 22 September 2011 … is a very respectable looking document altogether. It makes important statements about ‘creating a sustainable built environment which is accessible’. Its purpose is ‘to define how the built environment should be designed, constructed and managed to enable people to approach, enter, use, egress from and evacuate a building independently, in an equitable and dignified manner and to the greatest extent possible’ … ‘principles which are supported by Preamble (g) and Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’. I could go on, and on … but I will resist the temptation, since I was heavily involved in the development of this ISO Standard !

The point is … there is no longer any reason for European countries to complain about the inadequacy of this International Standard … and it should be the preferred instrument of choice to facilitate the immediate operation of the Accessibility / Design for All Requirements in EU Public Procurement Directive 2004/18/EC.

Unfortunately, this may not happen !

Years too late, near the end of 2007 … DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion (EMPL), in the European Commission, issued the following Mandate …

M/420 EN – Brussels, 21 December 2007

Standardization Mandate 420 to CEN, CENELEC and ETSI in Support of European Accessibility Requirements for Public Procurement in the Built Environment

Click the Link Above to read and/or download PDF File (67.4 kb)

This Mandate covers 2 Phases of Work. Phase I deals with compiling an inventory of existing accessibility-related standards and an analysis of any gaps … as well as with issues of accessibility implementation monitoring and conformity assessment. Phase II is the actual accessibility standard(s) development phase.

However … Mandate M/420 EN is a flawed document, and it should have received much closer scrutiny from the European Standards Organizations named in the document title … before any work in Phase I commenced. Failing that … the first work item on the Phase I Agenda should certainly have been a critical examination of the mandate.

In a post, dated 15 January 2011 … I wrote …

” The European Union’s Accessibility Strategy, related Policies and Programmes … and the monitoring, targeting and independent verification of Accessibility Implementation … all require a radical overhaul !

All those Officials in the European Commission who are involved, in any way, shape or form, with Accessibility of the ‘Human Environment’ would do well to RE-READ AND MEDITATE DEEPLY on the contents of the 2003 Final Report from the Group of Accessibility Experts, which was established by the European Commission itself … “

The Final Report from the 2003 EU Group of Accessibility Experts, of which I was a Member, can be downloaded towards the end of that post.

The Officials who drafted Commission Mandate M/420 EN paid little, if any, attention to that 2003 Expert Group Report.

At the end of Phase I … in response to the European Commission’s Mandate M/420 EN … a long, rambling CEN Joint Report (document ref. CEN/BT/WG 207 N 29) of 425 Pages was issued, dated 8 August 2011, for general discussion and comment.

Some Comments on the CEN Joint Report …

1. Terminology

CEN Joint Report – CEN/BT/WG 207 N 29

3.4 Conclusions View, Findings and Recommendations

3.4.1 Overview

Terms such as ‘procurement’, ‘inclusion’, ‘accessibility’ and ‘compliance’ are difficult to define precisely, and they are often not fully understood by those responsible for managing or providing the products or environments people use. They are also not readily understood by those administrating and triggering the procurement process.

It is strange, therefore … and unacceptable … that this Report does not attempt to reduce and/or remove the ambiguity surrounding these terms … by providing a clear definition, with a supporting explanatory text, for each of the terms listed above.

I’m not even sure that the large numbers of people who helped to draft the CEN Joint Report fully understand those terms !

Most importantly, the Report is not at all precise about … and in fact appears to be completely confused by … the clear distinction which must be made between ‘accessibility’ and ‘access’.

2. ‘Accessibility’ & UN CRPD

Accessibility does not begin and end with Article 9 of the United Nations 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) !!! See my post, dated 15 January 2011 … and #6 below.

3. EU Ratification of UN CRPD

The full implications arising from European Union (EU) Ratification, on 23 December 2010, of the United Nations 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) … for both EU Institutions, and the EU Member States (whether or not they have individually ratified the UN Convention) … have not been properly examined in the CEN Joint Report.

See my post, dated 5 February 2011 .

4. Mainstreaming ‘Accessibility’

For the majority of people involved in the spatial planning, design and development of the European Built Environment, Accessibility is all about transport issues … for example, how far a proposed new building is from a transportation node.

We are communicating such a confused message (is it Accessibility for All, Design for All, Inclusive Design, Universal Design, or Barrier-Free Design ?) … that many policy and decision makers just could not be bothered. And who, in Europe, is really concerned with the quality of Accessibility Implementation ???

In addition … the CEN Joint Report neglected to deal adequately … or at all … with a major body of EU Legislation which has been implemented at national level, in the Member States, many years ago … Safety at Work Legislation ! All of the EU Directives require that workplaces be accessible. Yet, I know for a fact that, in Ireland, the Health & Safety Authority (HSA) is doing absolutely nothing to check whether this requirement is being complied with or not.

A Sustainable Built Environment is Accessible for All ! So many different types of International/European/National Legislation mandate that the Built Environment shall be Accessible for All !! Good Design demands that the Built Environment is Accessible for All !!!

So why is Accessibility not being properly integrated into the operation of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Legislation ?

Environmental Impact: Any effect caused by a given activity on the environment, including human health, safety and welfare, flora, fauna, soil, air, water, and especially representative samples of natural ecosystems, climate, landscape and historical monuments or other physical structures, or the interactions among these factors; it also includes effects on accessibility, cultural heritage or socio-economic conditions resulting from alterations to those factors.

No case need be made for the integration of Accessibility into Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) … it self-evidently must be !

Sustainability Impact Assessment: A continual evaluation and optimization process – informing initial decision-making, or design, and shaping activity/product/service realization, useful life and termination, or final disposal – of the interrelated positive and negative social, environmental, economic, institutional, political and legal impacts on balanced and equitable implementation of Sustainable Human and Social Development.

5. What Is The Overriding European Social Priority ?

The overriding European Social Priority is to commence operation, with full effect, of the Accessibility / Design for All Requirements within the fast evolving European Public Procurement Framework … as quickly as possible.

Do we have to wait another 2 or 3 years, at least, for the production of an ‘acceptable’ European Accessibility Standard ?? Instead, why not approve ISO 21542 as the European Standard when it is published as a full standard … which will be very soon ? ISO 21542 is already being used as the benchmark in the CEN Joint Report !

AND … do we have to wait, for who knows how long … before Effective Monitoring Procedures … and Independent Verification Procedures … are put in place at European and National/Regional/Local Levels ???

Quality of European Accessibility Implementation … is critical !

2011-10-17 …

6. Post UN CRPD – A More Demanding Scope & Quality of Implementation

Not unexpected … but it has still been a most enlightening experience to read the recent UN CRPD Committee Report on Spain … selected extracts from which are reproduced below. The language used by the Committee is strong and direct … finally !

This is not a good report and, in places, it makes for unpleasant reading … a concrete example of the ‘hypocrisy and blatant self-delusion practiced by Europeans’, which I talked about earlier.

In accordance with Article 36.3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) … the UN Secretary-General will be making this Report available to all States Parties.

United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Sixth Session – 19 to 23 September 2011

Concluding Observations on Initial Report of Spain

(Article 35 of UN CRPD)

The Committee considered the initial report of Spain (CRPD/C/ESP/1) at its 56th and 57th meetings, held on 20 September 2011, and adopted the following concluding observations at its 62nd meeting, held on 23 September 2011.

III. Principal Areas of Concern & Recommendations

A. General Principles & Obligations (Articles 1 & 4)

11. The Committee takes note of the adoption of Act 26/2011 which introduces the concept of ‘person with disabilities’ as defined in the Convention and expands the protection of persons with disabilities. However, it is concerned that not all persons with disabilities are covered by the law.

12. The Committee urges the State Party to ensure that all persons with disabilities enjoy protection against discrimination and have access to equal opportunities irrespective of their level of disability.

13. The Committee welcomes Act 49/2007, dated 26 December 2007, establishing the Permanent Specialized Office to deal with offences and sanctions in equal opportunities, non-discrimination and universal accessibility by persons with disabilities. However, it is concerned by the slow development and lack of promotion of this arbitration system at the regional government level; by the lack of information on the number of sanctions submitted and resolved; and by the failure of the State Party to report on actions undertaken to implement this law. The Committee is concerned about the overall effectiveness of the system.

14. The Committee recommends that the State Party raise awareness among persons with disabilities about the system of arbitration; increase the level of free legal aid; and ensure the regulation of offences and sanctions at the regional government level.

15. The Committee regrets the lack of information on the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organisations at the regional level in designing, and evaluating the implementation of legislation, policy and decision-making processes; and the participation of children with disabilities at all levels.

16. The Committee recommends that the State Party take specific measures to: ensure the active participation of persons with disabilities in public decision-making processes at the regional level; and to include children with disabilities at all levels.

17. The Committee takes note of Act 2/2010 of 3 March 2010 on sexual and reproductive health decriminalizing voluntary termination of pregnancy, allowing pregnancy to be terminated up to 14 weeks and including two specific cases in which abortion is allowed for longer time limits due to the fact that the foetus has a disability: until 22 weeks of gestation, provided there is ‘a risk of serious anomalies in the foetus’, and beyond week 22 when, inter alia, ‘an extremely serious and incurable illness is detected in the foetus’. It also notes the explanations provided by the State Party for maintaining this distinction.

18. The Committee recommends that the State Party abolish the distinction made in Act 2/2010 in the period allowed under law within which a pregnancy can be terminated, based solely on disability.

B. Specific Rights (Articles 5-30)

Equality and non-discrimination (Article 5)

19. The Committee welcomes the adoption of Act 26/2011 amending regulations which will abolish the need to have a disability certificate to bring a discrimination claim before a judicial body. However, it regrets the lack of information on cases of discrimination, and it is concerned that persons with disabilities will still be marginalized. The Committee is further concerned by the lack of information on reasonable accommodation. It is also concerned that in practice disability affects parents’ guardianship or custody of their children and that legal protection against discrimination on the grounds of disability is not enforceable in cases of discrimination due to perceived disability or association with a person with a disability.

20. The Committee urges the State Party to expand the protection of discrimination on the grounds of disability to explicitly cover multiple disability, perceived disability and association with a person with a disability, and to ensure the protection from denial of reasonable accommodation, as a form of discrimination, regardless of the level of disability. Moreover guidance, awareness raising and training should be given to ensure a better comprehension by all stakeholders, including persons with disabilities, of the concept of reasonable accommodation and prevention of discrimination.

Article 8 – Awareness-Raising

25. The Committee commends the many initiatives taken by the State Party to implement the Convention. However, it notes that more needs to be done to increase awareness in society, in the media and amongst persons with disabilities themselves of the right of persons with disabilities.

26. The Committee calls upon the State Party to take proactive measures to enhance awareness of the Convention and its Optional Protocol at all levels, in particular among the judiciary and the legal profession, political parties, Parliament and Government officials, civil society, media, persons with disabilities, as well as the general public.

Article 9 – Accessibility

27. The Committee takes note that Act 26/2011 amends regulations which will shorten the timelines for meeting accessibility requirements in public facilities; and goods and services available to the public. However, it remains concerned at the low level of compliance with these requirements, in particular, at regional and local levels, in the private sector, and in relation to existing facilities. The Committee is aware of situations of discrimination faced by air passengers with disabilities, including situations of denial of boarding. The Committee reminds the State Party that Article 9 of the Convention also demands access to information and communication.

28. The Committee recommends that sufficient financial and human resources be allocated as soon as possible to implement, promote and monitor compliance with accessibility legislation through national measures as well as through international cooperation.

Article 11 – Situations of Risk & Humanitarian Emergencies

31. The Committee is concerned at the insufficiency of specific protocols for persons with disabilities in emergency situations.

32. The Committee calls upon the State Party to review its laws and policies related to emergency situations with a view to including provisions guaranteeing the security and protection of persons with disabilities.

[ My Comment: This is a gross understatement of a serious problem which continues to fester not only in Spain but, more generally, in Europe ! ]

Article 19 – Living Independently & Being Included in the Community

39. The Committee is concerned at the lack of resources and services to guarantee the right to live independently and to be included in the community, in particular in rural areas. It is further concerned that the choice of residence of persons with disabilities is limited by the availability of the necessary services, and that those living in residential institutions are reported to have no alternative to institutionalization. Finally, the Committee is concerned about linking eligibility of social services to a specific grade of disability.

40. The Committee encourages the State Party to ensure that an adequate level of funding is made available to effectively enable persons with disabilities to: enjoy the freedom to choose their residence on an equal basis with others; access a full range of in-home, residential and other community services for daily life, including personal assistance; and to enjoy reasonable accommodation so as to better integrate into their communities.

41. The Committee is concerned that the law for the promotion of autonomy limits the resources to hire personal assistants only to those persons who have level 3 disabilities and only for education and work.

42. The Committee encourages the State Party to expand resources for personal assistants for all persons with disabilities in accordance with their requirements.

Article 24 – Education

43. The Committee welcomes the fact that the principle of inclusion governs the schooling of pupils with special educational needs; that discrimination in education is prohibited; and that most children with disabilities are included in the regular education system. It commends the enactment of Organic Act 2/2006 on Education, which obliges the education authorities to provide specialist teachers, qualified professionals and the necessary materials and resources, as well as the laws that oblige schools to make necessary curricular adjustments and diversifications for pupils with disabilities. However, the Committee is concerned by the implementation of these laws in practice, in view of reported cases of failure to provide reasonable accommodation, of continued segregation and exclusion, of financial arguments used as justification for discrimination, and of the cases of children enrolled in special education against their parents’ will. The Committee notes with concern that parents challenging the placement of their children with disabilities in special education have no possibility of appeal and that their only alternative is to educate them at their own expense or pay for the reasonable accommodation of their child in the regular education system.

44. The Committee reiterates that denial of reasonable accommodation constitutes discrimination and the duty to provide reasonable accommodation is immediately applicable and not subject to progressive realisation. It recommends the State Party to:

(a) Increase its efforts to provide reasonable accommodation in education, allocating sufficient financial and human resources to implement the right to inclusive education; paying particular attention to assessing the availability of teachers with specialist qualifications; and ensuring that educational departments of local governments understand their obligations under the Convention and act in conformity with its provisions ;

(b) Ensure that the decisions to place children with a disability in a special school or in special classes, or to offer them solely a reduced standard curriculum, are taken in consultation with the parents ;

(c) Ensure that the parents of children with disabilities are not obliged to pay for the education or for the measures of reasonable accommodation in mainstream schools ;

(d) Ensure that decisions on placing children in segregated settings can be appealed swiftly and effectively.

C. Specific Obligations (Articles 31-33)

Statistics and data collection (Article 31)

49. The Committee regrets the low level of disaggregated data on persons with disabilities. The Committee recalls that such information is indispensable to: understanding the situations of specific groups of persons with disabilities in the State Party who may be subject to varying degrees of vulnerability; developing laws, policies and programmes adapted to their situations; and assessing the implementation of the Convention.

50. The Committee recommends that the State party systematize the collection, analysis and dissemination of data, disaggregated by sex, age and disability; enhance capacity building in this regard; and develop gender-sensitive indicators to support legislative developments, policymaking and institutional strengthening for monitoring and reporting on progress made with regard to the implementation of the various provisions of the Convention.

51. The Committee regrets that the situation of children with disabilities is not reflected in the data on the protection of children.

52. The Committee recommends that the State Party systematically collect, analyse and disseminate data, disaggregated by sex, age and disability, on abuse and violence against children.

END