I notice you are spending a lot of ink lately questioning why six people died in the recent Cook County Administration Building fire.
The answer seems pretty obvious to me.
In July (before the fire), my building held its mandatory annual fire drill. Conspicuously absent from the drill, I thought, was an actual practice use of the stairwell.
Being new to the high-rise environment, I thought I’d try the stairwell out right then, rather than wait for an emergency.
I was shocked to discover that once I had entered the stairwell, every door on every floor was locked.
The only way I got out was to return to the floor where our fire drill was taking place, where someone heard my knock.
Incredulously, I asked our Chicago city fire marshal who was conducting the drill about the stairwells.
He assured me that in the event of a fire, a building employee would unlock the doors.
Right, I thought.
I spent much time over the next several weeks musing about how essentially all the high-rises in Chicago and perhaps the nation were operating death traps disguised as safety devices.
And then the inevitable happened: One of the death traps killed some people, in a county-operated building, no less.
If a naif like myself can figure out in five minutes that a locked stairwell is a death trap, what does this say about the intelligence of the city administration and the building operators who actually implement such devices?
Anyone who locks unsuspecting innocents within inescapable spaces, or who requires that building owners implement such locked spaces, should be sued into oblivion.
