High-rise evacuation chute unveiled

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Imagine in the event of a fire in a high-rise building a number of giant chutes sprouting from the structure through which people slide to safety.

The prototype for such a system was unveiled Tuesday before an appreciative assembly of reporters and photographers -- normally a tough audience to impress -- at Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel. From 11 stories up, men and women swished through a giant tube made of fire-resistant fabric girded with steel cables, emerging at ground level to general applause. The device resembles a slide one might find at a water park, but bigger.

The developers of the Advanced Modular Evacuation System see it the first major breakthrough in building safety since the invention of the fire escape.

District of Columbia Deputy Fire Chief Mike Smith hailed the development. It takes firefighters with full equipment an average or two to three minutes per floor to ascend a building, he said. Because of widespread budget cuts, fire departments are being asked to do more with less. "This will help," Smith said, adding that in the late 19th century the idea of stepping out of a building onto something that was hung on the side by bolts must have appeared strange also.

Arik Benzvi -- spokesman for Advanced Evacuation Systems, based in Tel Aviv and Hong Kong -- told United Press International that company chairman Eli Nir came up with the idea for the system after his son Ofir was trapped on the top floor of a hotel during a fire. Ofir was rescued, but it occurred to Nir that existing procedures for evacuating people from high-rise structures were inadequate. He started to think about innovative ways of getting people out of buildings faster.

"This all pre-dates 9-11, which proved that point quite horrifically to the rest of the world," Benzvi said. "If somebody's trapped above a fire, it's very difficult for even the best first-response mechanism to get those people out." The system was not developed as a response to terrorism.

The system is packaged into a relatively small, unobtrusive container, which is fitted into the walls of buildings. "As the name indicates, it's modular, so you can put several on each floor. You can put them on numerous floors depending on occupancy. When the fire alarm is activated, the system deploys automatically.

Does that mean, Benzvi was asked, if one is looking at a building and a fire alarm goes off, these chutes would suddenly sprout from the windows?

"Exactly," he replied. "The existing prototype, which is ready for production, is effective up to 22 floors. New models, which will work on a corkscrew principle, theoretically will be effective up to 100 stories and higher."

Apparently, some kinks need to be worked out. In Tuesday's demonstration, a man on the ground deployed the chute by pulling on a rope. A pamphlet distributed to reporters explained that steel cables are attached to the chute, one on the top and the rest on the bottom, forming a winch system for winding the cables into a compact receptacle where the chute is stored. To deploy the system, the spring ejects and unfolds the chute to ground level, where it needs to be anchored.

Adam Segal of Rabinowitz Media told UPI that first responders, building managers and even tenants would be trained in securing the bottom of the chute to a pre-designated spot. AMES has offered to drill prospective clients in how to do this, Segal said. In an emergency, the chute can be secured to a tree or a vehicle.

Benzvi said the system can work either in a straight shot from the building to the ground level, as demonstrated, or -- in a more densely packed urban setting such as Manhattan -- people can be evacuated from building to building. He anticipated that the cost of the new system will be partly offset by the reduction in insurance liability.

Nir told UPI that he expects the current cost of approximately $20,000 per unit to go down as production increases. Custom designed chutes can be installed and operational within six months.

Nir designed the system with Ofir Primo to safeguard those who are most vulnerable in an emergency: children, the elderly, the injured, and the disabled. After the user enters the chute through automatic doors, he or she is protected from heat, smoke, fire or hazardous debris.

Asked about the most difficult obstacles that he had to overcome, Nir replied: "That the material doesn't hurt you when you slide down. Second, that the system not take up a lot of space in the building."

Jeffrey A. Banman, chief executive officer of Safety Resources Services, acted as master of ceremonies. Banman said that inside the building a control panel, through lights and sounds, issues directives to the evacuees, giving the go-ahead when it is safe for the next person to enter the chute. In this way, 15 people per minute, or one every four seconds, can escape safely.

The pamphlet said that acceleration, although rapid, is controlled through a series of "steps" every five floors. At the final stage of descent, the chute flattens its trajectory, allowing for a sharp deceleration and an easy stop on the landing pad.

Nir entered partnership with brothers Sam and Doron Nagar, Hong Kong-based businessmen. "We are extremely excited" about the product, Doron Nagar told UPI.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is on the board of directors of Advanced Evacuation Systems, spoke at the unveiling.

Barak said that during his years in the Israeli Defense Force and later as a public servant, he saw the enormous effort that was needed to respond to emergency situations and the importance of planning in dealing with those situations successfully. He said the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear what every fire department official and emergency manager around the world has known for a long time: "Our tallest buildings and largest structures are vulnerable. Whether in a fire or an earthquake or -- heaven forbid -- another terrorist attack, the systems we have in place right now to evacuate people in urban settings are, quite frankly, inadequate."

Correcting that situation calls for creative thought, Barak said. "To borrow an American phrase, the (AMES) system was created by thinking outside the box. It combines innovative engineering, the latest technology in fire-resistant materials, and the shared lessons from a wide variety of emergency situations to create a unique and effective solution for mass evacuation. ... I am confident it will save lives."