In the minutes after an explosion shook the Mallers Building, jeweler Fred Hakimian made a few quick decisions. He wet a paper towel and held it over his mouth as he headed through clouds of smoke in the hallway, then down 12 flights of stairs to safety.
But as he returned to work in the 21-story building earlier this month, Hakimian wondered if it might not have been a better idea to use the fire escape, a thought that didn’t even enter his mind at the time of the fire, he said.
Because there had been no building-wide evacuation drill beforehand, Hakimian and some others said they were unsure of what to do after the April 1 explosion. The experience has made them believers in the value of evacuation drills.
“I recommend to the whole world that they should plan an escape in advance so when this happens, you don’t even have to think,” Hakimian said.
An illegal 100-pound propane tank exploded in Betty’s Jewelry, causing extensive damage on the sixth floor and forcing the evacuation of the building at 5 S. Wabash Ave.
Even though Chicago’s evacuation ordinance does not require buildings its size to do so, the Mallers Building had filed a written evacuation plan with the city. Building managers also offered a safety seminar for tenants and circulated handouts explaining escape routes.
But the building, like hundreds of others, falls in a category of high-rises not required by law to conduct evacuation drills. Many have done so anyway. But others, including some 20- and even 35-story office buildings have not, despite the focus on emergency preparedness since Sept. 11.
Fire safety experts and building managers agree that drills are a good idea for buildings with large concentrations of people.
Having a safety plan sitting on a book shelf somewhere in the office doesn’t do any good if people don’t know how to use it, said Marco Giamberardino, director of standards for the Building Owners and Managers Association.
Although Chicago fire officials recommend fire drills for all buildings, the city’s ordinance requires only about 50 buildings in the city–those higher than 540 feet–to conduct annual or semi-annual evacuation drills, city officials said.
After the world watched thousands of office workers try to escape the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, the City Council started to revise its evacuation ordinance. At first, there was talk about requiring every building taller than 80 feet to have mandatory drills.
But concerns were raised that some of the requirements might be too taxing on smaller buildings, and aldermen also argued that the taller buildings would be more likely targets for terrorist attacks.
The version that passed in October requires only the tallest buildings to hold regular evacuations. It encourages other buildings to do so, but does not make it mandatory.
Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) said he believes drills should be done in all high-rises and that practice drills shouldn’t be too much of a burden for building management. There may be changes to the evacuation ordinance in the future, he said.
Cortez Trotter, named recently as the city’s point man on emergency response, said the city has stressed that drills should be held, but not legislated it.
“Most of the building owners and managers are responsible enough to take it upon themselves to do it,” Trotter said.
For the most part, that appears to be true.
Nancy Carskie, property manager of the 35 E. Wacker Building, said the management of the 40-floor building holds drills twice a year even though it is not required. “That way, when something happens, a person can go into autopilot, go down the stairwell and get out of the building,” she said.
But when the explosion rocked the Mallers where there had been no building-wide drills, some tenants had acquainted themselves with emergency plans and others had not.
Mallers tenant Cathy Luhrsen said she and others in her 13th-floor office didn’t have problems getting out because they had attended the buildingwide safety seminar.
Others took it upon themselves to practice evacuating. Oscar Valencia and his partner at Wedding Bands Co. and Laser Fix held their own drill with employees because they were concerned about getting out safely from a high-rise office in an emergency.
Valencia said the prior drills helped a lot when the hallways were filled with smoke and “you couldn’t see and you couldn’t breathe.”
But tenants who had not practiced or participated in any meetings said they were confused when confronted by choking smoke. Some stuck their heads out windows to get fresh air until firefighters arrived.
Though no one was critically injured in the Mallers Building explosion, some did suffer burns and smoke inhalation.
At least one woman has filed a lawsuit arguing that she was traumatized after she was stuck in a 21st-floor office for two hours while smoke filled the hallways. Her attorneys say the building should have implemented a better escape plan for tenants.
Even though tenants were given sheets to inform them of what to do, actually practicing it would have helped tenants react better when the explosion occurred, said tenant Jeff Michaelson.
“The time to learn how to handle an emergency is not in the middle of an emergency,” he said.
