Conference Facilitator: Well good afternoon, welcome back for our last two public speaking sessions. A basic announcement, for those of you who have requested a spot to speak this afternoon during the two-minute public speaking presentations, take a look up on the screen. All of the speakers that have been accepted are listed, and you will speak in that order.
We will project that one more time during the next break so that you’ll know
about that last session. The last session, once again, starts at
Thank you very much for your attention. Our first speaker this afternoon is Jack Murphy, he represents the Fire Safety Directors of Greater New York. Jack.
Jack
Murphy, Fire Safety Directors of Greater
The events surrounding the tragedy of
The Fire Safety Directors Association of Greater New York whose membership exceeds 400 appointed a task force to address this issue with the view to outlining a number of suggestions that would reflect the insight of our collective experience. We do not envision the final product to be drastic in scope nor dramatic in application.
In fact, we view the local New York City high-rise, Local Law 5 and other national high-rise laws as not unlike a constitution, solid and formidable, but yet needing an amendment system to become more useful to a citizenry that is so dependent on its utility..
To better prepare building management and emergency response for future disasters the following features are vitally important to ensure occupant confidence in the safety of the building are as follows:
A high-rise building is a complicated structure; these vertical cities loom along the many broad avenues of our major cities. Essential to these structures are the vibrant mechanical systems that are very often tuned to the varieties of a four-season cycle, which are unseen as they are encased in massive engine rooms under very controlled conditions.
While the machinery and the people who are assigned to manage this enterprise are recognized as being essential to the workplace, the person who is entrusted to the safety of our workforce, in fact to the very development of a safety of the building environment, is often much less accepted as being part of those buildings that are so omnipresent to our surroundings. This is the Fire Safety Director. Perhaps the reason for this omission is that the Fire Safety Director is a single entity who is the essential person who has the responsibility to assure that all of the fire protection systems, emergency systems, egress components, HVAC mechanical systems and the people who service that commodity are in compliance with all the laws and policies that relate to high-rise fire safety. A dedicated fire safety director is the foundation for any high-rise building emergency response. Their sole purpose is to provide the best practices of fire safety and emergency management. The building owners must take the same vigor that is applied when seeking the position of a security director. Building management does not seek anything less for this position other than a senior level police officer and/or a national law enforcement agent. The same energy must be applied when seeking the position of a dedicated fire safety director who has the previous experience of the fire service and/or emergency management.
Some of the components in the building are emergency response teams, and they are essential for floor evacuations. Emergency Evacuation Team must have knowledge of and have been drilled on their respective floors as to were the each stairwell is located, how to use a warden phone and converse with the fire safety director at the mail lobby and know where all building street level exit discharges too, so that on certain directions you’re not coming into the lobby, so as to go directly out to the street.
The Building Response Team shall consist of building service people who make up the mechanical section of the building, who have been selected, organized, and trained for their intended purpose by the Fire Safety Director.
A question that must be asked, is what valuable role did the fire safety directors and the floor wardens play in the evacuation of the World Trade Center and the surrounding buildings on 9/11?
Also to enhance the evacuation of “People with Disability” the following issues must be addressed. Add a “Buddy System Team” to the floor evacuation team with at least four able people floors one every five and/or on the floor identified as one that needs such a chair. Enlarge stair landings facilitating rest areas and a staging space for people with disabilities. The use of elevators for emergencies other than fires, and I will underline that, emergencies other than fire, so as to enhance a rapid evacuation procedure for people with disabilities.
For emergencies other than fire, one of the most important objectives of this study is how to best execute a full building evacuation for emergencies other that fire and to understand the potential behavior of the occupants during such an emergency. We thereby ask, also to conduct annual phased and tier mitigations from this building, and also to establish a neighborhood policy so that when you’re doing it in the area, the other people in the surrounding high-rise buildings have an understanding of what is going on.
Some of the following concerns that we looked at are revisions to codes, standards and practices for improving fire safety to national fire and building codes for high-rise structures.
Enhancements to staircases; increase the width of stairs 55 inches minimum width and increase capacity of the exit discharge at the street level. Install cameras at the exit discharge to monitor egress back at the Fire Command Center, so we have an idea how the stairs are flowing. Make at least one enclosed stairwell a fire tower.
Provide all stair tower entry doors with fail-safe door hardware that will deactivate during any fire emergency or other emergency, EXCEPT a manual pull station. All fail-safe locks are then connected to the main fire alarm system along with a manual override switch. The value is that accessing every floor is more pertinent today and will assist in a relocation not only for a fire, but also to a potential chemical threat that may adversely affected into the HVAC system. Require that all corridor doors be installed in the hallways, left and right of the stair towers exceeding the reach of 125 feet of hose off the standpipe. Install emergency lighting, paint staircases a standard color throughout the tower, have reflective self-illuminated signs, install Exit signs lower at the base of the door.
Fire Command Centers should be enclosed, built and constructed at the street side of the building so that the fire department can at least have access off the street. Many times they are open to the atrium. Create a mobile Fire Alarm System for buildings 300 feet or higher. Look at a remote redundant FAS system for buildings less than 300 feet. Have emergency elevators available for the fire service to reduce time to ascend up the stairs. Provide the elevator within 12 feet of the staircase. We’re running these elevators outside of buildings, they’re waterproof out there, however inside the building we lose them right away. In Kuala Lumpur, they have in that famous tower, which is connected by a double-deck horizontal bridge, a fire tower dedicated just for the fire department. Off the floor there’s a door, an interstitial area, a dedicated fire elevator and then the stair tower itself.
All Public Elevator lobbies EXCEPT for the building mail level should be enclosed. For compartmentation, limit the size to 5000 square feet. Do away with the unlimited size exemption for sprinkled areas. Devise a better way to create open spaces. At many of the fore that go on in these high-rise buildings, we wait for the fire load, that is the floor content, to burn out before we can make an aggressive attack onto the floor, and this must be made known to the public. Also passive fire protection such as compartmentation is an old ally of the fire service. They should be brought back.
Install smoke management systems in the lobbies and limit HVAC systems to one or two floors. Make retroactive changes for high-rise buildings that they’re all sprinkled with seven years. Any fire alarm system older than 18 years old must be evaluated to ensure full system functionality.
In closing, these proposed revisions to National Building and Fire Codes that were presented, are not so much driven by ignorance, but a common sense approach so as to re-insure that life safety is that welfare of all building occupants.
The Fire Safety Director Association of New York membership, composed as it is by individuals who view public safety as it relates to high-rise buildings in New York City, ask the National Institute of Standards and Technology to be receptive to our input and recognize our resolution to structure our collective experience into this format. This series of suggestions that will give present national high-rise laws greater flexibility and more effective applications to a growing need that has, with such menacing suddenness, altered us to respond with a determined purpose. Thank you.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you Jack. Our next speaker is Gene Corley, representing ASCE/FEMA WTC Building Performance Study.
Gene Corley, ASCE/FEMA WTC Building Performance Study: Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. Over the next few minutes I would like to briefly mention what the building performance study was intended to accomplish, indicate some of the findings, and particularly list some of the research suggestions that we have in the report. The report and the study was sponsored by the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and by FEMA. Many other organizations participated in this study.
There were 23 people on the team, and of those 23 there was a core group of five whose responsibility was to be sure that the report got completed in a timely fashion, and was published. The team, the core group is shown here. The scope of our work was to collect and preserve data, do a preliminary analysis of the performance of buildings, make recommendations for additional study, and to the extent possible, make recommendations to improve the response of buildings in the future.
Our findings showed that the impact was not sufficient to cause collapse of the towers, but a second large event was required before collapse occurred. The fire turned out to be that second event, although it could have been other things such as a very strong wind on the building that was already weakened badly by the terrorist attack. On the two towers, we found that the impact dislodged fireproofing, it also damaged stair enclosures, all of the stair enclosures on one, and two out of the three stair enclosures on the other. The fire occurred on several floors immediately, instantaneously creating an extremely large fire.
Above the areas where the planes hit, we found that four people escaped, there may have been a few more than that based on more recent information, but at least we confirmed that four escaped from above. Mainly because the stairs were not passable. The collapse occurred as a result of the fire after the initial structural damage was done. Among the many things that we found in this part of the study, was that we need to know about, more about connections and their resistance to fire.
This applies to all buildings, not just those buildings that might be the targets of a terrorist. Among the things we need to know there, is we need to know what the fire ratings are for connections. We need to develop test data, and we need to do some analysis of the failures that we found in these buildings, the collapses we found inside these buildings, to determine what effect the connection fireproofing had on that.
Other research needs include a need for more thorough understanding of the structure, and its response to major impact, such as aircraft impact. Also, the fire effects and the fire protection for the types of structural elements that were in the buildings that were on fire here. We need information on egress, this previous speaker mentioned that as one of the things needed, and our report agrees with that. We also need more information to assist with search and rescue.
Let's look at these projects in a little more detail. For structural projects, we need to do more work to determine how to provide robustness in a building, extra strength in a building, and still manage to keep the building so it is useful. We also need to know more about how loads are redistributed when large portions of a building are removed as a result of this, in this case, of an aircraft impact. And we need to know more about connections.
Related to fire, we need to know more about fire spread, particularly where there is a hydocarbon involved, like the aircraft fuel. We need to understand fireproofing and its ability to remain attached to the steel. We need to know more about that. Also, we need to be able to understand the temperature rise in the steel, based upon the fireproofing materials that are available. We also need to know more about the combustibles in a building, what sort of temperatures they give off compared to the standard fire tests, and again, we need to know the fire resistance of connections.
Related to egress, that is exiting of a building, we need to know the capacity of the stairs and now find out how these stairs work during this emergency. To do that, we need to have interviews with people who came out of the building successfully. We need to determine the reactions of the people when they first knew there was an emergency and what they did to get out of the buildings successfully. And we need to rethink our robustness of the stairwells, where to put them, how strong to make them, so they can survive and be available after an impact that might occur if a terrorist attacks another building.
Research and rescue, we need to know more about how to find those who can be rescued. We need to know more about how to get access to them under the conditions we had here and how to protect the rescuers during an attack or after an attack like this.
In summary, the towers did survive the impact. The fire brought them down. Redundancy and robustness that was built into those towers worked up until the fire overcame the remaining capacity. Transfer trusses, as we found in other buildings, need special consideration. Fire resistance of connections is very important, and we don't have enough information on that.
We need to relate the fireproofing to the fire load and importance of the members. And exit stairs with impact need to be reviewed.
The report is published and available free of charge for you to see the details. It will also be submitted officially to this hearing.
Thank you.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you, Gene.
Our next speaker is Glen Corbett from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Glen Corbett, John Jay College of Criminal Justice: Dr. Snell, Dr. Sunder, and other representatives of NIST, I would like to thank you for having this public hearing regarding the World Trade Center disaster investigation.
Meetings like this one allow the public to understand and contribute to the investigation itself. I applaud the collective efforts of NIST personnel.
I'm going to keep my comments very brief today, because I think a cliché for me comes right to the forefront. That you need to be aware of what you ask for, because you actually might get it. And I feel that what I asked for on March 6th and on May 1st before the House Science Committee you have delivered, and I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart.
I would like to enthusiastically endorse your investigation plan that's being discussed today. I'll repeat what I said before the House Science Committee on May 1st. “The proposed NIST investigation that's under consideration today is the type of large-scale forensic inquiry that the federal government should have launched back in September.”
The NIST plan provides for an investigation of a truly comprehensive nature, taking an integrated realistic approach. These qualities are essential in order to completely understand what happened at the World Trade Center. Understanding the interrelationship between the various aspects of the disaster will allow us to help develop better strategies for building design and emergency response protocols.
While the scope of the proposed investigation is as broad and deep as I believe is necessary, I would suggest that it be modified slightly to include two additional areas not specifically mentioned in the plan. These areas are, number one, the study of the role the fire safety director, which would be I believe associated with project number seven. And also a review of the urban search and rescue efforts that were undertaken at Ground Zero immediately after and for let's say the next couple weeks after the collapse of the buildings. And I believe that's related to project number eight.
Looking at the fire safety directors, they played a critical role that day at the trade center complex. And it's essential that we explore the operational procedures that were in place prior to the disaster, as well as the actions that were taken by the fire safety directors on September 11th. A complete comprehension of these actions will permit the development of enhanced guidelines for evacuation procedures not only in high-rise buildings, but other structures where a large number of people gather.
For example, reviewing the activities of fire safety directors will help us form the basis for a fundamental review of the “defend in place” life safety strategy so prevalent in many of our large structures across the nation. This single “nationalized” strategy has had profound implications on evacuation procedures, fire protection system design and firefighting actions.
In terms of urban search and rescue, the disaster of the World Trade Center was the largest mobilization of rescue forces in our nation's history. I believe that these rescue efforts should be included in the study the emergency response described in the proposed plan. The study should include a review of the management of the rescue operations, the equipment used and the techniques employed. Particular attention should be paid to the relationship between the nature of the collapse itself and the rescue tactics and tools that were utilized.
In closing, I have a few comments regarding the overall investigation itself. Specifically, based upon my perception of what I heard this morning, there's a lot of need out there. I think we all heard that.
There's a lot of diversity. And we even heard of where one individual was advocating one area and another person was advocating another issue to be looked at. And I think, you know, everything we've asked for - or at least what I've asked for - is there. The problem is that how do we prioritize these issues?
I don't consider structural to be any more important than the life safety and evacuation issues, nor the firefighting issues. They're all essential that have to be studied.
I think that what I would suggest we do is prioritize things not so much on an issue basis, but perhaps on an information basis. Specifically, I would ask that prioritization take place for the data specifically. That we try to collect all the relevant data that's necessary to understand all those other issues.
For example, I would advocate that we do a large number of interviews, because I think interviews will help us not only to firefight but also survivors. But I think interviews will help those other areas. For example, not only evacuation, but the structural fire protection issues as well. I would ask that perhaps that some of the modeling work and some of the testing work perhaps take a secondary role to that - what I believe to be critical information gathering, a critical element within the NIST plan.
The second thing I would suggest, as I already mentioned once already, but I would ask that large numbers of target interviews be conducted. As I mentioned earlier, this is very critical to gaining as much information as possible, because as we speak information is being lost. Every day, the further we get away from this, the more information we're not going to have access to. And we need to make sure that that takes place.
I would ask that the open tent scenario be offered to other organizations that are doing research work. I would ask that they be included not only for their information, but as participants in the investigation. I would ask that NIST play an active role of soliciting that information, trying to get a handle on where all these research activities are taking place and to invite them in to, again, come under the tent and participate with this effort.
And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is that I ask that this investigation start as soon as possible. I realize that the $16 million appropriation is not yet in place, but I would urge that the chartering of the federal advisory committee be initiated as soon as possible.
I want to thank you again for allowing me to speak on this very important subject. It's my opinion that the work that will come out of this investigation is perhaps the greatest legacy to the 3,000 people that were killed on September 11th.
Thank you very much.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you, Glen.
Our next speaker is Charles Carter from the American Institute of Steel Construction.
Charles Carter, American Institute of Steel Construction: I'm Charlie Carter with AISC, the American Institute of Steel Construction. And I'd like to thank NIST for the opportunity to speak today. AISC writes the rules for design and construction of steel buildings. And in that sense, my comments will primarily be structural in emphasis.
We would like to express our pleasure that funding is being discussed for these activities and that NIST is the agency identified to lead the effort. I'd like to compliment you on the far-reaching aggressive plan that you've put together for our review. And I appreciate the opportunity to comment.
From the speakers that have gone before and those that will follow, I'm sure we will see a divergence of wants and needs. And I don't envy your task in trying to please everybody.
From the structural perspective of AISC, and my own perspective, some constructive criticisms that I'd like to offer.
As I read the work plan, there is some potential too be conclusive about establishing potential outcomes of the study before the study is undertaken.
There's a lot of allusion to code changes that may or may not be justified. I don't mean to intend that code changes wouldn't be justified, just that we ought to think about what we're doing, and make sure that what we're doing is the right thing to do.
Another constructive criticism is to focus on buildings one, two and seven may be too limiting, in that there are a lot of lessons to be learned from the other buildings - the response of the surrounding buildings, many lesser in stature, but no less important in terms of the lessons of both good and poor performance on that day.
To that end, also the Pentagon is a good example. Is there any potential to include the Pentagon results, which despite the dissimilar size, dissimilar structural system, dissimilar configuration of the building, experienced much the same performance on that day.
There's also a need, in my opinion, to include consideration of loads. I don't think that the plan as proposed adequately addresses the need to identify what loads are we considering? What loads do we need to consider?
We can talk about redundancy and margin of safety against abnormal loadings, but unless we can identify what loads need to be resisted, there's really no practical way to incorporate those conclusions into the design process.
To be meaningful, then, this work must be connected to the building code process. If there are code changes to be made, that's where it has to happen.
And toward that end, I'm happy to say that the AISC in partnership with several other similar and related organizations has created a council of structural engineering and code-related organizations. It's chaired by NCSEA, the National Council of Structural Engineering Associations. That's the parent organization of Structural Engineers Association of New York, which has played such a critical role in the search and rescue, recovery and mitigation effort.
It also includes ASCE, and the Structural Engineering Institute thereof, the Council of American Structural Engineers, the two model building code agencies in the United States. The National Fire Protection Association and the International Code Council are both participating.
AISC, along with the American Concrete Institute, the Masonry Society and American Iron and Steel Institute are all participating, along with a couple of other organizations - Society of Fire Protection Engineers and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
This group brings into one organization, one group participating, all entities in the building code process to get meaningful change from a structural perspective into the building code.
This group, working with NIST, could function as the model of efficiency that FEMA, through its SAC joint venture, which followed on the Northridge earthquake and has included AISC and other organizations, to move research and testing right into the building code as quickly as possible.
The initial results of that effort cut the normal time to get something into the building code in half, and has reduced that time to less than a year in recent years.
Again, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to address the group and to speak on behalf of AISC, comment on the plan. I think in the end, if we do what's right, everyone can accept that.
Thank you.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you, Charles.
Our next speaker is James Shannon. He is from - he is from the National Fire Protection Association.
James Shannon, President & CEO, National Fire Protection Association: Good afternoon. Thank you, Dr. Snell, Dr. Sunder.
My name is James Shannon. I'm President and CEO of NFPA, (the National Fire Protection Agency) based in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide testimony in support of the pending NIST National Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center disaster.
NFPA is a 106-year-old private, non-profit organization whose mission is to reduce the burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by advocating scientifically-based consensus codes and standards, research, training and education. NFPA has 74,000 members in 80 countries around the world.
We are involved in the development of codes and standards using the procedures of ANSI (American National Standards Institute) for every aspect of building construction, electrical safety and life safety.
Our codes and standards establish the recognized national and in many cases global requirements for a range of systems and subjects, including automatic fire sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems, fire and life safety, firefighter protective equipment, and firefighter safety issues.
Since shortly after September 11th, NFPA has been offering free online high-rise safety and evacuation information on its Web site to building occupants, building owners and building managers interested in conducting evacuation drills at work.
NFPA has also made available five important model consensus standards targeted to first responders who are called to hazardous materials events.
Further, NFPA is now offering a second round of emergency response planning workshops which it first offered in December of 2001, throughout the U.S. in conjunction with BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association), AIA (American Institute of Architects) and the Public Building Service of GSA (General Services Administration). The first set of workshops held since December of 2001, drew over 1,000 participants in 11 cities across the United States.
Because of its expertise, NFPA has been closely involved in all major aspects of study evaluation and investigation coming out of the World Trade Center events. NFPA was a member of the on-site team of ASCE building performance assessment team (BPAT), whose report was issued in May. NFPA is also a participating member of the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat task group, established to evaluate high-rise building design in light of the terrorist attacks, and is a member of the Infrastructure Security Partnership established by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to collaborate on issues related to the security of the nation's built environment.
We have taken a proactive role in all of these activities, because we know that it is important for everyone -- the design community, the construction community, and perhaps most importantly the public -- to know with some level of detail how and why the buildings at the World Trade Center complex collapsed.
The NIST objectives described by Director Bement last month, and the eight projects in the proposed plan have far-reaching impacts for all of us here today.
While no one can say with any certainty that some different design approach might have allowed these magnificent buildings to remain standing, or if there would have been a way to get more emergency responders away from the collapsed area sooner, we need to learn as much as we can.
The ASCE/FEMA report has given the proposed initiative from NIST a tremendous place to start. The areas under consideration by the NIST technical investigation are of critical importance to NFPA and its constituents. The process and plan that NIST has proposed is consistent, although on a much larger scale with how NFPA has approached significant loss of life in the building failure incidents in the past.
In fact, NFPA has already initiated its study on the human behavior aspect topic covered under project number seven, and we look forward to working with and maintaining close coordination with NIST on that project.
As the NIST technical investigation moves in this direction, NFPA agrees the results of the analysis must be fully evaluated. For example, the design of World Trade Center building Seven, and the circumstances surrounding what appears to be a catastrophic collapse as a result of just fire must be investigated.
It is imperative that speculation, opinion and guesswork be set aside, and a scientific explanation of events be provided in both technical terms and laymen's terms, to understand what happened, how it happened and why it happened.
Thus far the World Trade Center investigation carried out by ASCE and FEMA, has been the most extensive building loss investigation ever undertaken by anyone, any where and there is much more to learn. Therefore, we encourage Congress to fund the NIST project. We believe there is no other agency within the federal government or the private sector that is better qualified to lead this effort than NIST.
NFPA supports the outline for investigation including, 1) code practices, 2) structural performance following dynamic impact, 3) forensic analysis of the steel that has been recovered and is being stored by NIST; 4) performance of active fire protection systems; 5) thermal environment created by the ignition of the aviation fuel in interior building furnishings, 6) structural performance under severely imposed loads; 7) human behavior and egress performance under extreme conditions coupled with emergency communications, and finally, but of crucial importance, 8) the fire service procedures and protocols used for such extraordinary events.
It will also be important for the technical investigation to remind us of what worked well on September 11. It is imperative that the results of the investigation receive the widest possible dissemination so any lessons learned are not shelved or forgotten. I can assure you that NFPA will do everything that we can through our ongoing codes and standards activities, public education programs, and outreach events to communicate to the public the findings of the investigation.
Our association develops over 300 codes and standards, of which easily 100 might be affected by the results of the investigation. NFPA has an interest in every project and task associated with this investigation, and we look forward to working with NIST and its other partners to complete this project in order to determine what measures and realistic changes we can consider in the future.
Thank you.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you, James.
Our next speaker is John Durrant of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
John Durrant, American Society of Civil Engineers: Doctors Snell, Sunder, ladies and gentlemen, virtually everyone remembers where they were last September 11 when they learned of or saw that airplanes had crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Our world we now know will never be the same.
After I heard of this horror on my car radio, I proceeded to get on a Washington D.C.-bound metro to attend a scheduled meeting in the Washington office of the American Society of Civil Engineers. On the way, I used my cell phone to notify ASCE's Communications Department that I was coming to their office and so was the Structural Engineering Institute's director, Jim Rothberg (ph). I informed them that we would be available to provide names of structural engineers who would then be able to respond to media inquiries about the design of the Towers.
At this point, it was suggested that small planes or perhaps commuter planes had hit the buildings. I assumed that any resulting fire would be extinguished quickly enough by the New York Fire Department and that although the structures would be damaged, they would survive the incident.
When I arrived in our D.C. office at about 9:50 A.M., there was absolutely no doubt now that our world would never be the same. The Pentagon was on fire across the river and the fires in the Towers appeared massive on television. These were not small planes that hit the Towers.
Would the Towers endure the heat from the fires? Where were my sisters - my brothers-in-law working that day? Will there be more attacks on Washington? This is what was racing through my mind. And then the unthinkable - the unimaginable - the South Tower collapsed, followed by the North Tower.
Civil engineers need to know why. We need to know how. By learning from experience, we can make improvements, we can make lives better, we can make lives safer. The first canon of our Code of Ethics states that engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. We were compelled to learn from how the Pentagon and the buildings at the World Trade Center performed under such severe conditions. The events were unprecedented. No tall building had every succumbed to fire before.
Jim Rothberg (ph) never made it to D.C. that morning. Of all places, he had pulled over in the Pentagon parking lot to take a cell call and was there when the Pentagon was attacked. Instead of proceeding to D.C., he instead decided to head back to ASCE's headquarters in Reston, Virginia where I finally caught up with him that afternoon. He had already begun to pull together two teams to evaluate the structural performance of the buildings involved in the day's events.
When I suggested that we knew why the Towers collapsed - large airliners were deliberately flown into them, after all - he replied, "But we don't know how they performed. Why did they stay up so long? How did the fire impact the structural performance?" All questions that needed to be answered.
We both agreed this work needed to be done, although at this point, we had no idea how such an activity would be funded. But we did know that the profession and the Society had a long tradition of studying such events, including most recently several earthquakes around the world and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
With support from several partnering organizations, many of who are being - many of whom are being heard today - and let me list those in case it hasn't been clear exactly who is part of this team. They are The American Institute of Steel Construction; ACI International, which is the American Concrete Institute; The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; The International Code Council; The National Fire Protection Association, which we just from; The Society of Fire Protection Engineers, who you'll hear from soon; The Structural Engineers Association of New York - you've heard about them and you'll hear from them shortly; The Masonry Society; and The National Council of Structural Engineering Associations.
With support from these partnering organizations and including NIST - we won't forget NIST - a team to study the Pentagon and a separate team to study the World Trade Center were assembled by ASCE. Very fortunately, FEMA funded the World Trade Center team (as a BPAT). This funding allowed the New York team to produce a report of preliminary observations and recommendations that was well written and well received by the profession.
The World Trade Center team accomplished an enormous amount in a short period of time and has suggested that, indeed, more needs to be done. ASCE supports the efforts of NIST to further study and analyze the World Trade Center disaster and urges that the specific recommendations contained in the BPAT report are followed up on in both the investigation and especially in the very critical research needs that have been identified. ASCE urges that the investigation not only focus on the Towers, but on the performance of the surrounding buildings as well. The report contains significant findings, and more can be learned by studying the surrounding structures.
Although much has been identified that is appropriate to the planned investigation and expectations are high that the findings will result not only in changes to building codes but to structural design practice as well, let me urge again that needed research that has already been identified, particularly the subject of the interaction of structural elements and fire and the progressive collapse that these be undertaken by NIST.
The civil engineering profession is concerned about the potential impact of the findings of the NIST investigation. Recommendations for code changes and changes in design practices may be anticipated from this work, and in the interest of public safety, the civil engineering profession will be most supportive that appropriate changes be made.
It is essential, however, that before implementation, a full vetting of any recommendations be made. NIST is to be applauded for taking on this investigation, but we urge that those whose expertise can contribute be heard. It is important that premature actions not result in unintended consequences. To this end, consistent with ASCE policy statement 294, I pledge the full cooperation of the American Society of Civil Engineers and especially the Structural Engineering Institute in this investigation. ASCE also supports the National Construction Safety Team Act introduced in the House by Representative Boehlert and in the Senate by Senators Schumer and Clinton. This legislation would improve the protocol for the formation and operation of building performance study teams in their work to assess how buildings fail during a natural disaster or terrorist event.
If enacted, the legislation would give future building performance study teams early site access, subpoena power to retrieve, key information, and guaranteed funds. No, our world will never be the same. So let us remember those who sacrificed with their lives on September 11 by committing to make it better.
Thank you.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you, John.
Our next speaker is Kathleen Almand from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
Kathleen Almand, Society of Fire Protection Engineers: Good afternoon. I'm Kathleen Almand, the Executive Director of SFPE, and I wanted to thank you on behalf of our members for the opportunity to testify today.
SFPE members represent the collective national and international expertise in the field of fire protection engineering and selected members of SFPE were the major contributors on fire related issues in the preparation of the FEMA sponsored preliminary investigative report that we've heard about this afternoon.
SFPE agrees with the recommendations of this report that additional studies of the Twin Towers and WT7 should be conducted and we are pleased that our federal government is planning to provide NIST with the resources necessary to perform the investigation.
We hope that Congress also supports however the research and development program and the dissemination and technical assistance plans that are also part of the NIST response plan. We believe these are very important elements to follow the investigation plan.
With our member's collective knowledge of building fire safety performance, SFPE is prepared to support NIST in the investigation and in the more comprehensive response plan in any way that we can.
We've reviewed the plan as proposed by NIST, including the eight projects and the multiple tasks proposed under each project. SFPE believes that the proposed plan represents a logical, comprehensive and technically sound approach to performing the investigation. We believe that it's important to document the technical conditions that contributed to the outcome of the World Trade Center collapses, both from the standpoint of prevailing codes and standards and design practices and as well from the standpoint of current scientific and engineering knowledge.
SFPE believes that it's vital that the results of the investigation serve as a roadmap for a comprehensive research and development program that will further advance the technical basis for fire safety design in buildings.
We then look forward to working in any way we can to help disseminate that information to our members, the fire protection engineers who are responsible for fire safety design in buildings.
As recommended in the FEMA sponsored study, with better integration of fire protection engineering into the design of structures, the entire design team will be better equipped to address fire as a design consideration rather than an arbitrary regulatory constraint.
Thank you very much
Conference Facilitator: Thank you, Kathleen.
Our next speaker is Ramon Gilsanz from the Structural Engineers Association of New York.
Ramon Gilsanz, Structural Engineers Association of New York: Hi. Thank you for letting me speak. I am the chairman of the Code Committee of the Structural Engineers Association. The Structural Engineers Association has over 300 members and represents the interests of the structural engineers in the city of New York.
The purpose of my presentation is to comment on the NIST proposals, the recommendations of the FEMA/ASCE Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT) and the needs of the City of New York. I hope the presentation is focused and just mentions a few key points.
The first think I wanted to emphasize is that NIST will address all the recommendations of the BPAT report. I think that they’re very helpful.
The following comments relate the NIST proposal to New York City. The comments are related to the nuances of the New York City and abnormal events. I want to emphasize that any conclusion needs to be studied by the stakeholders before implementation and I recommend that the stakeholders be involved in the process. By stakeholders, I mean everybody who uses the buildings from emergency personnel to the everyday user to the real estate board to the engineers and architects and to the owners.
If there are going to be any changes to the Building Code, they have to be done by consensus and the sooner that consensus is reached, the sooner the proposed changes can be examined that there is no question about implementation.
NIST goes beyond the BPAT report. Basically, they mention that whenever an innovative structural system is used, there should be a process of review. The Structural Engineers Association of New York asks “Why not review all systems, instead of only the innovative ones? Why not have reviews for all projects above a certain scope?”
Structural peer reviews are not currently part of the New York City building department process. Actually there are no reviews, according to the New York City building department process, for structures. This review is a process implemented typically after collapse. The peer review process of structure will uniformize design, will enhance the enforcement of the code and in the long term, the public safety.
I’m going to mention some of the project’s specifically. Project number one: The assessment of building and fire codes and practices, the comparison between the New York City code, IBC an British Code. I think it is important that this comparison be undertaken, and I think the other codes are up to date, have incorporated this latest research. They have a maintenance process, but lack the case history of the New York City building code. It would be very interesting to see what we can learn from these codes that are more advanced than ours.
This review should be looked at, not only from the point of view of the rules of design, but also should be from the point of view of enforcement. What are the inspection standards, according to protocols? How is the process of inspection done? How are controlled inspections compared to special inspections and the building observation in other states? What are the qualifications of the inspectors for building codes?
With respect to Project Number Six, the structural fire and progressive collapse, NIST, based on the BPAT, considers these unique mechanisms. A new process of the behavior of transfer trusses was discovered in building 7. Well, I would advocate that we read chapter 18 of the New York City building code that deals with progressive collapse. This provision appeared in the codes over 30 years ago. It has never been revised and was originally developed after the collapse of the pre-cast apartment building in Brooklyn (after the collapse because it was an explosion.) If revised and updated, it could include concepts of redundancy and member importance, in addition to building importance.
The issue of building importance in the code, depending on the use of the building, has certain requirements. The rules for building have never been applied locally to some members. There may be some members in a building that are more important than others, and that concept should be explored.
Project Number Six explores connections. There’s also a provision in the New York City code that discusses axial capacity of connections between columns and beams. The purpose of this provision is to brace the columns. We should look at that provision, or NIST should look at that provision, and look at what happens when you increase the redundancy of the structure, basically applying theses kinds of concepts to all building framing, as the British code does. Following this, we could talk about the robustness of the connections, the bolt distance issue that is seen in Building Five failure. Also, we could comment on seated connections that have no tension capacity.
Project number seven and number eight deal with egress and with fire service technology. One should point out that a lot has been said about stairs. New York City buildings extensively use what is called Scissor Stairs. A Scissor Stair is where two stairs share the same shaft. In other words, it’s like having two elevators in one elevator shaft. What you have is one elevator on top of another, but it’s a system of stairs in which both stairs are in the same shaft. A lot of residential high-rises in New York use the single shaft concept of the Scissor Stair. This is a very effective stair because it duplicates the exiting capacity, but we should consider this more carefully because if that shaft gets damaged, then there is no other stair or egress.
With respect to Project Number Eight, there should be a pre-planning and training seminars. We recommend that the fire department look at the classifications of buildings before the incident. We want the structural system classified. We want the fire department to be aware in the change of fire load. We need some observation of duration of use or change of use. We would like the fire department and the building department to share information before the event and this information would include, but it’s not limited to the description of the structural system, the fire load, the egress system, et cetera.
In summary, I think New York City can benefit from the conclusions of the NIST study. I only hope they come as soon as possible.
Thank you.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you, Ramon. Our next speaker is Joseph Messersmith from the Portland Cement Association.
Joseph Messersmith from the Portland Cement Association: I would like to begin by thanking NIST for allowing me to come and comment on the investigation. I’m going to comment on a portion of the investigation within Project #1. Although I’m in agreement in general with all the investigation, in particular, this part.
The particular part within Project #1 which I’m going to address is the structural fire resistance requirement in building codes for tall buildings, past and present. This is embodied within Task #5. Now, a little bit about my background that led me to be very interested in this particular aspect of the investigation.
I have been involved in building code developments in this country about the last 30 years. Over that period of time, I’ve accumulated a lot of building codes written within these 30 years ago, and even before that time. So I felt that more than likely most of the documents they would review to perform the study, I had at my disposal in my office. So I started taking these building codes off of the shelf to see what I could determine.
I want to start out by posing a question which I will then answer. Do contemporary building codes provide safer buildings than codes of the past? Generally, yes, there is no doubt. From the standpoint of being able to withstand seismic forces, buildings are better today than they were 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago. From a standpoint of withstanding wind loads, our buildings are better designed than they were yesterday. From structural fire protections, though, the answer in my opinion is a better resounding no.
And as we go through this, you will see why I say no, that the codes are not better than they were many years ago. The building codes that I looked at was included the original model building code of the last century. It was first printed in 1905 by the National Board of Fire Underwriters and known as the National Building Code. And that existed through about 1980, and by that time the National Board of Fire Underwriters had become the American Insurance Association. They decided to get out of the building code business, and they gave the title National Building Code to BOCA. Then over a couple of editions, the BOCA code transformed itself into the BOCA National Building Codes.
The second model building code was the Uniform Building Code, first published in 1927. Then came the Standard Building Code, first published about 1945, followed by BOCA’s Basic Building Code in 1950. Then there was a long period of time where the status quo remained. Those three codes pretty much had everything to themselves unless the city wanted to write its own code. Then about 1994 the International Code Council decided that the three member groups, BOCA, SBCCI, and ICBO would join forces and write the International Building Codes (IBC).
That code was first produced in the year 2000. A couple of years ago, the National Fire Protection Association decided that there needed to be another player in the model building code market, and they decided that they would write a building code of their own, known as the NFPA 5000. The first edition of this code will be finalized in a couple of months. I think it will carry the date 2003. So these are the six model building codes I looked at.
The structural elements I looked at include columns supporting more than one floor, beams framing into those columns, but supporting only one floor, and the floor itself. Here is what I found. I looked at the earliest edition I could find of each one of these codes, and then I looked at the last edition of each one of these codes. The date of the last edition is date in parentheses. Obviously, the last two, the IBC and NFPA 5000, the first and last are the same edition. The numerical values under the columns with the headings “columns,” “beams,” and “floors” are required hourly fire resistance ratings. The values in parentheses are those from the latest edition of the codes, and the other values are from the codes first edition.
You’ll notice that back in the early years, the National Building Codes, and the Uniform Building Code, require columns to have four-hour ratings. Beams were to have three and four ratings depending upon the code. Floor systems were to have three-hour ratings. Progressing down the line to the Standard Building Code, the first edition, had fire rating of the three hours and two hours. They remained the same until the last edition of that code.
I only looked at apartment buildings, hotels, motels, and office buildings for this study because there were differences. You see the differences here under the BOCA code. The values in parentheses then were the values in the last edition of those codes. As you can see, over the years some of the older codes reduced their values somewhat. I think this was probably a response to assertions by some people that the ratings were excessive and should be reduced.
In the latter years, and in the recent two codes, the IBC, and the NFPA 5000, the maximum rating required is two hours. You’ll notice that they are accompanied by asterisks. That asterisk means the rating has been reduced one hour because the buildings must be sprinklered. There is an exception to that in NFPA 5000. That code does have a requirement that has put into the code pretty much at the last minute, and in my opinion it was a response to 9/11. If the building exceeds 420 feet in height, columns need to be rated three hours.
I next took a look at several old city codes, including New York City, and you’ll find the same trend. You go back to the 1930s, you’ll find the same four hour and three hour ratings. Interestingly enough, the current New York city building code as I read the version over the Internet, and I may be missing a buried provision someplace, but it looks like to me, under the New York City building code, you can still build unsprinklered apartment buildings.
Well, in that case, you still need three-hour columns. But when you build sprinklered buildings under the New York City building code, office buildings, residential buildings, all you need are two-hour rated columns, and one and one-half hour rated floors and beams. Those are the lowest of all the ratings I’ve shown you.
I mentioned sprinkler tradeoffs. Typically, the codes that have sprinkler tradeoffs for high rise buildings, allow you to reduce the construction type by one type. That typically allows a one-hour reduction in columns, and in some codes it allows a half hour reduction for the floor system. Another reduction it gives, although it's not really a structural fire resistance reduction, but if you have a shaft, other than an exit stair or an elevator hoist way shaft, you can also reduce those from two hours to one hour.
I have often questioned people when the codes started introducing the sprinkler tradeoffs for high-rise buildings. I would say it seems to me that since you're not allowing the fire resistance to be completely eliminated, you are presuming a sprinkler system failure. And the answer always came back, that's right, we assume there's going to be a failure. And my response to that always was well if you're going to admit that the sprinkler system may fail, and you are going to provide some fire resistance in case it does fail, it seems to me you need to provide the same fire resistance as you would assuming the building is not sprinklered. But still we have the sprinkler tradeoffs that are ingrained in a lot of our codes today.
I'd like to end by making three recommendations to NIST, when they perform this portion of the study. Number one, they should determine the likely scenarios that may render sprinkler systems inoperable. I think this is very important, particularly for taller buildings. Number two, determine when it is inappropriate to reduce structural fire resistance because of the presence of sprinklers. And finally, determine the minimum prescriptive fire resistance that should apply in all cases, including when performance based design is being used. Thank you.
Conference Facilitator: Thank you Joseph. That concludes our third session. We'll have a break now, but before we go on the break, let me just outline what we're going to be doing this afternoon when we return from the break promptly at 2:25. You'll have eight more nine-minute public comment speakers, we will then have from 3:35 to 4:05 the open session two-minute speakers, and to review, for those of you who are not aware of who's been selected, these are selected speakers who will make two-minute presentations.
We need every one of these speakers to also report to the speaker section to be prepared for their presentation, because they're going to follow right on the heels of the nine-minute presentations. We will then wrap-up the day at 4:05 with a wrap-up and next step session hosted by Jack Snell. We have a 15-minute break, we will start at 2:25. Thank you.