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Columbia to Study Evacuation Procedures
By EDWARD WYATT
December 4, 2002
Researchers at Columbia University are embarking on
a three-year study of the evacuation of the World Trade Center twin
towers during the terrorist attack to help determine how individual
behavior, the structure of the buildings and emergency management
procedures affected who survived and why.
The injury prevention program at the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded a $1.5 million grant
to the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the Mailman School
of Public Health to finance the study, university officials
said.
Since the 9/11 attack, public health researchers
have inquired into the array of conditions related to the disaster,
including studies of the structural factors that led to the
collapse of the towers, the response of emergency workers and the
health-related effects of the collapse of the buildings and the
cleanup afterward.
But relatively few of those efforts have focused on
the more than 12,000 people who were safely evacuated from the
towers, said Robyn Gershon, an associate professor of sociomedical
sciences at Columbia, who is one of the principal investigators in
the study.
"The best estimates are that about 1,200 people were
trapped in the buildings at the time of the collapse below the
points of impact," Dr. Gershon said. "This is an opportunity to
look at what might have saved those people, at least."
Sue Binder, director of the injury prevention
center, said the study was intended to help determine what
information is most needed by people to help them make decisions
during a catastrophic event.
"There was a time when people believed that in a
disaster people panicked," Dr. Binder said. "We have since learned
that many people actually make good decisions, but they are based
on inadequate information."
To determine how occupants of the trade center
towers acted, researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice and New York University will also participate in the study,
which will be conducted in two parts. Beginning in May, the
researchers hope to recruit and interview about 150 people,
including people who safely fled the building that day, as well as
building managers, public safety experts and rescue workers, Dr.
Gershon said.
In early 2004, following analysis of the information
gathered from interviews, questionnaires will be sent to as many as
5,000 people who were in the towers. The questionnaires will seek
to determine which types of companies had in place evacuation or
emergency plans and how well they were executed.
Dr. Gershon said that she and Stephen Morse, the
director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness, the study's
other principal investigator, have received letters of support for
the study from all the agencies involved in the management and
oversight of the buildings, including the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site, and the
city's Department of Buildings.
Among other studies, the Department of Buildings has
a task force that is studying possible changes in how high-rise
buildings are protected against fire and structural damage, and how
they are evacuated. The task force's recommendations are scheduled
to be released this month, Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the
department, said. The National Institute of Standards and
Technology is also conducting a federal study of the collapse of
the twin towers, which will include research on the application of
evacuation procedures.
So far, relatively few changes have been made in
evacuation procedures for high-rise buildings in New York City or
elsewhere since 9/11, said Sally Regenhard, founder of the
Skyscraper Safety Campaign and the mother of a firefighter who was
killed that day.
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© Copyright (c) 2002, NY Times
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