Ask Lemmy

...architect here: we design protected areas of refuge where mobilty-impared occupants can shelter in place until emergency services arrive to evacuate them from the facility...

...you'll often see areas of refuge identified near elevator lobbies and equipped with hardened callboxes for emergency communication, or marked on the evacuation plan if they're in a remote location...sometimes areas of refuge are pretty subtle if you don't know to look for them: we design protected firewalls, structure, and building systems integrated into the facility so the biggest tells are usually callboxes, magnetic door hold-opens, or tracks for automatic fire curtains...

...when renovating older facilities, we do the best we can to modernise life safety within the limitations of existing infrastructure, but the general rule of thumb is that as long as you've improved upon what ~~originally~~ previously existed, you've satisfied your obligation even if it's not at parity with new construction...

(it's not uncommon for old facilities to have gone through a dozen or more life-safety modernisations since the advent of modern building codes, just palimpsested one-over-the-other as standards progressed)

The building manager should (and may be legally required to) have a fire department approved emergency plan that specifically addresses this question. Usually, the plan will be for you to await rescue.

A modern, up-to-code high rise building will have designated "places of refuge" that are designed to withstand heat and smoke, such as a pressurized stairwell with fire doors. In older buildings that don't have something like that, the plan might call for disabled people to go to the nearest (unprotected) stairway, or it might call for them to remain in their office/apartment and "defend in place". If possible, call 911 (or equivalent) to notify rescuers of your location.

In my workplace, there are a few options: When a disabled person is on a certain floor above ground floor, there will be a special chair they can be put in, that allows one person to maneuver them down the fire escape. Multiple people in the company are trained on the use of this contraption and are notified before the evacuation is necessary.

When there are more wheelchair bound people in the building than there are evacuation chairs available, they'll have to be taken to the fire escape behind double fireproof doors, where the area is pressurized with clean air. There the firemen will evacuate them.

A third option is the area where the elevators are. It closes automatically and has a fireproof door where you can wait in front of the elevators for the firemen to evacuate you using the elevators (or otherwise).

Normally there aren't that many wheelchair bound people in the building that need those chairs, because visitors are normally confined to the ground floor. On a floor where a disabled person used to work (now retired), one of those chairs was permanently available.

Edit: the ones we have resemble these https://evac-chair.com/

One thing I haven't seen in the thread yet, is that there ARE elevators which are intended for use during fire-related evacuations. I've been in buildings where signs by the elevators make it known that during evacuations you are SUPPOSED to use them.

I don't know the specifics, but I would assume these have self-monitoring sensors to allow the elevator control system to determine whether it is affected by whatever is going on.

I suspect the way they work also changes, instead of prioritizing getting around different floors, the computer would start shuttling them up and down specifically to get people from each floor down to ground level. No-one already in the elevator gets to pick what floor they're going to.

Modern buildings are constructed in a way that significantly slows the spread of a fire, and I would assume that the machinery and shaft of evacuation elevators, doubly so.

And same as any elevator, they are built using a level of redundancy that means several cables can fail without issue, as well as emergency brakes that arrest the fall of the cabin should the worst occur.

It's 2024, why in the hell is nobody designing skyscrapers with fun slides spiraling all the way to the bottom?

this seems really dangerous for anyone who might get stranded.

I'd take a step back and say no, this isn't actually as bad as some of the comments seem to suggest.

The vast, vast majority of building emergencies are safe to shelter in place. Modern building codes generally prevent fires from spreading too far, and isolate smoke to a specific place in the building.

Then, for certain types of catastrophic disasters, being able bodied doesn't actually help, as people can still get stuck and need rescue from firefighters anyway.

You need some kind of disaster Goldilocks zone where things are bad enough to where quick evacuation is helpful and things aren't so bad that evacuation isn't feasible, before it starts making a difference.

And in those situations, many buildings do have evacuation chairs in the stairwells. And stronger people can assist carrying down the stairs, too. There are a lot of variations on two-person or single person carries that depend on exactly what mobility limitation there is. If you live or work with or around people with mobility issues, it's worth looking them up, maybe taking a first aid/survival class or something.

Usually the evacuation plan includes people with wheel chairs going into the stairwells. Stairwells can withstand fire longer than the rest of the building. And, yes, there are usually people designated to carry or help those with mobility issues.

I used to work in a school with disabled kids, so I did a few fire drills.

As other people here have said, there are areas like stairwells where the kids with mobility issues waited (with adults, of course!) during fire alarms. Fire crews would've been told about us and come and got those kids first in the event of an actual emergency.

At my office each stairwell has a riding chair at the top. It's only three stories though.

What a depressing thread. Fuck people who can't walk I guess.