Living in a high-rise apartment building shouldn’t just elevate your view. It also should raise your consciousness about safety.
In a high-rise, a fire can mean hustling down dozens of flights of stairs, rather than springing a few feet from a first-floor window to the safety of terra firma. Rather than simply forcing you to reach for a flashlight, a power outage can trap you in an elevator between floors.
And in such a high-altitude setting, a loose brick or piece of facade outside your bedroom window is more than an eyesore, it’s a potentially lethal missile.
The critical importance of high-rise apartment building safety has spurred the Chicagoland Apartment Association (CAA) to schedule a seminar on the topic next month.
Scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Nov. 11, at the Chicago Buildings and Real Estate Show at Navy Pier, the CAA seminar titled “High Rise Safety–The Management of Risk” will cover high-rise fire safety, emergency plan preparation and emergency training and preparedness, among other topics.
Though the seminar is open to the public, its intended audience is building managers and owners.
If you’re a high-rise resident who can’t make the seminar, at least make safety a high priority in your daily existence. You can start by looking closely at your apartment building, said Ed Severns, assistant commissioner of the City of Chicago’s Building Department, which among other responsibilities makes sure existing city buildings are up to code in terms of safety.
According to Severns, the department’s biggest concern in high-rise buildings is that they offer residents safe means of evacuation. “You need two exits from a floor, in addition to elevators,” he said. “Exits have to be posted, and the (exit) signs should be illuminated.”
Doors from hallways to stairwells represent an important safety feature. They should be Class B fire-rated doors and marked as such on the “width edge” of the door, said Severns. And each one should feature a “return” on top, to make sure the door automatically closes. Fire doors are designed to block passage of fire through stairwells, and thus should never be propped open.
Residents should also find smoke detectors in the apartments, and fire extinguishers at posted areas in the hallways, Severns said. Those fire extinguishers should be labeled to show that they’ve been serviced in the past year.
Also look outside your windows at the window sills, said Severns. The potential for any part of an exterior wall to fall from the sides of high-rise buildings is an increasing concern for the Buildings Department.
“If you see cracks, bulging, washed-out mortar around bricks or a piece of terra cotta that appears loose, make sure property management is aware of it,” said Severns.
“This is a safety issue not for people sitting in their apartments, but 10 stories down,” he added. “But the resident has a bird’s eye view of it. It’s always a smart idea for a resident of a high-rise building to make building management or the Chicago Building Department aware of any deficiencies in the building.”
In addition, residents should take steps within their apartments to help minimize the threat of fire. “Make sure smoke detectors inside the units have fresh batteries, and that they’re checked every three months,” said Severns. “It’s a real smart idea to have one of those small portable fire extinguishers in your unit. And make sure you know the recommended evacuation route.”
Deputy Fire Commissioner John Ormond, of the Chicago Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Bureau, says residents can take additional steps to guard against fire. First, they shouldn’t allow rubbish or other combustible materials to accumulate in their apartments or in hallways.
“If they see it near their apartment, notify management to come up and get it out,” he said. “We don’t want combustible rubbish in the hallways that can feed a fire.”
Also be extremely careful with cooking utensils, smoking materials and portable space heaters, said Ormond. And keep furniture a safe distance from any space heater.
Like Severns, Ormond urges residents to familiarize themselves with their buildings’ evacuation plans, and to avoid elevators in an emergency. Taking an elevator in a fire may result in the elevator trapping a resident on the same floor as the fire.
“We stress the non-use of elevators,” he said. “Figure out the evacuation plan in advance. Find out where the stairwells are. They should be marked with illuminated stairwell signs. The evacuation plan should be the quickest way to get themselves out. The stairwells are the best place to go. They’ll allow you to get down to the ground or below the emergency situation.”
If fire seems to be in the hallway, Ormond added, place your hand on the inside of the door of your apartment. If the door is hot to the touch, stay within the apartment.
“Seal off the doors with wet towels and . . . seek help by phoning the building management. Let them know that you’re up in that apartment” and need help, he said, adding that residents should also account for anyone living or staying with them, and inform management of any people with disabilities on the floor who might need assistance.
“Run water in the bathtub to keep the towels wet,” Ormond said. “If smoke does come in, use cold wet towels over your face. Stay low. The smoke will rise, and the oxygen is down on the floor. Hopefully, we will be up there by that point.”
In the case of a natural gas or chemical leak, Ormond said, residents’ first priority again should be getting out of the building. “Once we are on the scene, we will take over and affect an orderly evacuation,” he added.
If caught in an elevator in a power outage, stay calm. “Stay in the elevator until the fire department can arrive and restore the power or evacuate you,” said Ormond.
In the future, high-rise residents may be able to benefit from a public education program that has proven highly successful in hotels and motels in the city, said Mike Cosgrove, spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department.
“We’re considering expanding the hotel-motel fire prevention public education video program, making the video available to high-rise owners and managers,” he said. “(High-rise residents) would be able to watch that tape in their home VCRs, or the tape could be shown at meetings to groups of residents.”
For now, high-rise residents, managers and owners concerned about fire safety can contact the Public Education Sector of the Fire Prevention Bureau at 312-747-1699 to schedule an appearance by a bureau representative.
“We can arrange a speaker to come out and talk to residents at their buildings,” Ormond said.
