Surprise, surprise. The article below says it all. I was wondering when someone was going to address the safety of these New York City monster high- rises. Turns out that you are pretty much toast if your tall office or apartment building is under attach. The reason? A lack of emergency measures and drills to safely evacuate.
Do you guys remember right after 9/11 when everyone was saying that they would not ever be able to work in a sky-scraper again? People also walked away from huge deposits they had placed on million dollar apartments because they could not bear to be high up for fear that another plane could crash into a tower. How soon we forget. In the last five years, the city has built more tall buildings than ever before. So it goes.....
* As an aside...why hasn't anybody addressed the incedible lack of energy- efficiency of some of these buildings. Am I mistaken in thinking that a glass-clad building probably is incredibly badly insulated? It must be very, very cold in the winter time
HIGH-RISES NOW 9/11 SCOFFLAWS
By CHUCK BENNETT
June 1, 2007 -- Half of the city's high-rises have failed to create post-9/11 emergency-response plans, as required by law, FDNY brass said yesterday.
All large office buildings over 10 stories were supposed to submit terrorism- and disaster-preparedness plans - complete with blueprints, evacuation details and an internal response team - to the FDNY by November last year.
But as of yesterday, just 666 of the estimated 1,200 to 1,400 buildings had done so, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said during a City Council hearing.
"We have been really quite firm with the real-estate industry," Scoppetta said. "We have been pushing them pretty hard."
Even so, fire-safety experts warn that the skyscraper owners are moving too slowly and leaving tens of thousands of office workers at risk.
"There's a lackadaisical approach to safety six years after 9/11. God forbid anything happens, you have to have a plan in place," said Jack Murphy, vice chairman of the Fire Safety Directors of Greater New York and an expert on the commercial high-rise safety.
"You could say it's negligent."
Owners are required to submit the plans under upgraded city building-safety laws that were passed after 9/11.
cbennett@nypost.com
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