People's responses to Martin's "what would you do" posts coupled with me just finishing 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers has got me thinking. I'm not sure what it is like at all y'alls places of work, but we rarely know why the fire alarm has gone off until well after we get the all-clear signal to return to work. A similar thing occurred in the Twin Towers. Surprisingly few people realized that a plane hit the first building and even fewer knew planes hit both. Reading that book, I was stunned at how little information/communication was available to the people in the buildings. This caused a lot of delay in the evacuations, leading to loss of life.

So what is my point? I'm not sure other than wondering if everyone really grabs their gear everytime there's an evacuation. When you are heading for the exit do you know why?

-Blast

Much like those "weekly" Alerts on TeeVee that numb you into automatically ignoring them. If the boy cries wolf too often no one believes him.

As for the question at hand, yes, (assuming I'm working outside the home office) I get my stuff and take my truck home at the first whiff of an issue. What I do is important for scheduled ops, but when an emergency strikes, unless I'm at GZ, I'm not needed -- I'm outta there.

While working at the Pentagon I learned that darned few of us are critical personnel (we all might think we are, but we're not) and if you aren't one of the few who are critical (hint: the critical few are wearing turn-out gear), get your stuff out of the way; make some spots available in the parking lot. Get clear so that if there really are casualties you aren't one of them. Secure your work stuff, grab your backpack and take an early long lunch, or better just go home. If you feel compelled to rubber-neck, do it from a distance upwind, or by switching to the local news at home. $.02

Usually the answer is, "Not a clue!"

The only times it is different is if the blue lights and gas sirens are going off instead of just the red lights and evacuation alarms.
When the gas sirens go off you need to be aware of the wind direction and which different muster points or refuge stations to head for.
You want to travel across the wind and not end up downwind of the gas.

Working underground was the same thing.

Evacuation means get out right away.
It does not mean you stand around wondering what just happened.

If a Hydrogen furnace blows up you are likely looking at a quarter mile radius of scorched earth.
If a vessel holding H2S lets go you have one of the most toxic hazards you can imagine.

After I am out of harm's way then I can be informed about why the alarms went off.

Precise information about events as they proceeded throughout the day such as the attacks on the World Trade Centre is bound to be garbled and sketchy after they have happened making information difficult to assess so as to create an evacuation plan or prompt the decision to bug out, but what I still cannot fathom about that day is the garbled and sketchy but soon to be very accurate news reports reporting events before they actually happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNK1V6S2cbo

Now this could be useful in a Dr Who sort of way in getting future event information in order to make the decision to evacuate.

I've always lived near work so primarily make sure I take a coat if it's not summer and keys and those are in my purse.

Since the anthrax attacks, I never go far without my purse.

"102 Minutes" was a riveting book. Yes, those of us watching TV knew a lot more about what was going on than a lot of people in the buildings.

Easy to get complacent.

I have a good deal of insight into this, as I'm one of those fire alarm guys. I've been to buildings where the management was specifically notified weeks in advance that we'd be there on a certain day to test the fire alarm system. Unbeknownst to us, they didn't bother to notify anyone. Some people ran for it when the alarm went off, others didn't even notice.

We were in a NFPA 72 training class at a hotel in Atlanta last year and the fire alarm went off in the building. A roomful (maybe 200 or so) of fire alarm installers, designers, technicians, fire marshals, etc... just sat there. I got the heck out, maybe 3 other guys went outside with me. I'd rather get out and find out it was a false alarm or drill, than be wrong any day.

The first day of the class, the hotel had a glass fire exit door locked right outside the conference room where the class was being taught. I told the manager of the hotel who didn't want to unlock it, that if the door wasn't unlocked (as per the fire code) that I'd throw a chair through it. Between a local fire marshal and myself, he got the point and unlocked it.

The main thing in an emergency situation, whether real or false alarm, is to have a flashlight and know your way out of the area. Preferably more than one way out, too, in case your primary exit is blocked or impassable.

We get the drills in our building, everyone walks outside then the rude smokers light up and I get a nice headache for the rest of the day from the poison. Then one day there was a bomb threat and they didn't alarm but locked the gates outside so people panicked and just drove through the grass around the gates.
I already have a distrust for those in charge anyway after my wife's law firm refused to dismiss the staff while secretly evacuating the lawyers on 9/11/2001.

I'm a floor captain at work, which is a glorified term that means I leave after I've swept half a floor for people who won't leave when the alarm sounds. People are pretty predictable - 95% move out quickly, then a handful choose to ignore and stay answering email, tinkering with computer hardware, occasionally talking on a conference call. I note their room numbers and they get reported to their managers and to security / fire responders, but no consequences afaik. I would leave immediately if I didn't have to do the fire warden thing, I've seen how fast a fire can do its business.

Boeing has a really good evacuation plan - they operate immense airplane factories, where an alarm could go off in Sector AA-25, and if they evacuated the entire plant for every call then productivity could be crushed, thousands of man hours lost. They localize their evacuations, and step up their fire fighting response. They also do something pretty cool with their fire wardens - they train the entire employee base to react, meaning if you hear an alarm the closest employee grabs the area check list and sweeps people out; everyone is a floor warden, or everyone who wants to take the responsibility. In practice its still the guy who volunteers for the duty, but if they're not there then everyone else is nominally prepared to sweep the area and report to responders. That makes sense to me, I've been out of the office during two actual fire emergencies in two different buildings, and no one was there to do the fire warden job.

How many people were in the WTC on 9/11?

How many of those people were considered merely cattle by their management?

There's not much you can do if you don't know something is wrong, but those who ignore warnings and fire alarms are just plain stupid.

On 9/11, there wasn't even proper communication between the EMERGENCY services, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that hasn't changed much.

People just have to take responsibility for themselves. Why would anyone hear alarms/shots/explosions and then ask other people if they should evacuate? Are people so incredibly dumb that they need to be told? If their supervisor told them to go back to work, I wonder what percentage would do just that?

I know the owner/mods here don't like the S-word in relation to people, but sometimes it's the only appropriate description.

Sue

Tell them "Fire, get out now!"
If they ignore you, walk around their desk and yank the power lead to their P.C. then Tell them "Out. Now."

Knowing why there is an alarm could be useful, if only so one can decide which direction to run away in.

I personally think that the fastest way to get killed is to sit and wait for orders. If some idiot is wittering that you "Have got to wait for orders/instructions, have to wait until you are told" and you think that there is IMMEDIATE danger, ignore them or if necessary go OVER them.

There are exceptions to that, like evacuation from a train/boat/tunnel where moving may cause more trouble than staying put.

Having been in a gloriously burning building, I can attest to the following:

1) you have less time than you think
2) do NOT get between me and the nearest safe exit. I can become that "irresistible force" that one often hears about.

One night in a hotel, I was watching a Discovery Channel show about travel hazards. One was about hotel fires. The host stated that on average one has 90 seconds from the time they hear the alarm and smell smoke to get to the street. THAT NIGHT, the alarm went off, and there was smoke in the hallway once I exited the room.

90 seconds is generous.....

And My Wife wonders why I won't stay in a hotel if I can't stay on the first or second floor!

The same show listed the floors 3 - 7 as the safest. Too high for a criminal to use an extension ladder to get to, but low enough for a Fire Dept. ladder truck to reach.

I'm a believer in "every day carry", which to me means it's not a matter of grabbing gear because it's already on me. I'll grab my jacket before leaving, but that's because it's liable to be cold outside and there could be a 10 minute wait for the signal to be cleared.

If you have a briefcase or a pack or something, I imagine during an evacuation you'd be expected to leave it behind anyway, in case it gets in the way.

I take my backpack with me because I'm not regrouping in the parking lot waiting for an "all clear"; I'm going home. It's nice having your primary office at home.

Blast,
I agree/disagree with the "causing a large loss of life"

In the first tower hit, it didn't make any difference. It really came down to - if you were below the impact, you lived, if you weren't, you died - plain and simple (well, give or take about 20-30 people)

Now, the South Tower was another story - IF you started to evacuate when the NORTH tower was hit, it made a difference. There was about 2000 people at/above what eventually became the impact point of the South Tower - 1400 of those people bugged out - despite being told to stay (they were tryng to get the North Tower cleared first) - about 600 people stayed.

You know the story there

You really have to ask the question - NOT given 20/20 hindsight, and realizing that for all intented, the 2 towers were two totally different buildings, would YOU have bugged out of the south tower because the north tower "had a fire". Remember, you have NO details. How quickly would you have bugged out? Would you have used the elevators? (remember, there is NO problem in your building). Would you have stopped to grab your bag/go to the bathroom, etc? (remember, the 2 buildings were for all intents 1/2-1 block from each other)

IF you decieed to use the stairs, let's say you were on floor 98 - would you have made these decisions fast enough to get down below the 78th floor? You had 16.5 minutes from the time the first building was hit! Interestingly, the answer was to ignore the "stay here, this building is safe" and ignore the "don't take the elevators in an emergency" - and get to the elevator bank and down - also remember that you were going to have to change elevators on the 78th floor - go from the local, to the express. As it was, about 200 people died in the elevators trying to get out of a building, many in the first few seconds - people who were getting out (the blast came all the way down the elevator shaftes at impact - there is footage - the doors in the lobby beltched flame at impact)

I grab my gear every time, even if I don't know why. Not from fear but from experience of the amount of time someone has before a situation escalates.

"Interestingly, the answer was to ignore the "stay here, this building is safe" and ignore the "don't take the elevators in an emergency" - and get to the elevator bank and down..."

Actually, I don't find that surprising at all, ESP not being part of the equation.

When the North Tower was hit (first), it was the SECOND attack on the WTC. Many people were still working there who had been there on 2-26-93, when six people died and 1,000 were injured.

In fact, I would suspect that that initial attack was the primary reason that so many people did evacuate the WTC on 9-11.

As for using the elevators, it was the fastest way out of a then-non-damaged building. There was no way that they could have predicted another attack that would involve the elevators.

I gave the people who headed for the exits (by any method) full marks for smarts, if not luck.

8:45 The first plane hit the North Tower.
9:03 The second plane hit the South Tower.
10:05 The South Tower collapsed.
10:28 The North Tower collapsed.

Even after the planes hit the buildings, who could foresee that the South Tower would collapse before the first-hit North Tower? Who would know that the towers would collapse at all? I read that the engineering designs for the towers said that the towers could take the impact of a jet plane. What they hadn't considered was the fact that the planes would be loaded with jet fuel. (Only in engineering do planes fly without fuel.)

IMO, you need to do a quick assessment, decide on a plan, and then get moving. It's just not the time for waffling and asking others for advice.

Sue

"102 Minutes" is motivation enough to always heed the drill and take your stuff.

And to get in shape to handle dozens of flights of stairs if you work in a high-rise.

One good thing about DC, building height is severely restricted.

12-stories is about the max.

Maybe I take preparedness to far. When I go into almost every building I locate the closest exit. Now in a restaurant or most stores this is almost a non-issue, you can see the exit.

When I go into high rises, when I exit the elevator on the floor I am on I usually take a moment to look at the floor plan and then do a visual on the exit door to the stairs.


I go so far as when my 6YO son and I go to movies I point out the exit up front by the screen we will use if we have to leave quickly.

On a crossword puzzle,all me paranoid or call me prepared. Both have eight letters.

You are wise.

Four letters.


;-)

You forgot to include,

5:20pm WTC 7 collapsed. (no plane hit this building)

Structural Engineers don't consider fire risk to a buildings collapse if the building is a steel truss framed building simply because most fires would not be hot enough to weaken the steel truss frame to the point whereby it would make it collapse under its own weight. To have 3 high rise steel truss frame building collapse on a single day to fire would have been highly statistically unlikely. Even more so within an hour of the steel frames being heated by a moderately cool fire such as happened within WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7. These buildings had very large multiple safety factors (they are over engineered) inherent in their designs where they had to withstand huge wind shear forces (velocities greater than a Cat 3-4 Hurricane - the designers were aware of the Long Island Express) which were many times greater than the strength required to withstand the gravitational forces of the buildings own weight even if all the structural steel had suddenly lost half its tensile strength when structural steel is heated to beyond 600 degrees Celsius (not just a few floors). It also take a long time (many hours) to heat hundreds to thousands of tonnes of structural steel to these temperatures due to the specific heat properties of structural steel.



A steel frame building will begin to sag and buckle before it collapses from the effects of fire as described here;

http://www.sheilacasey.com/2008/06/windsor-fire-in-madrid-vs-wtc-fires-on-911.html

I listen to a police scanner thru headphones much of the day.

When we were told to evacuate the facility 5 years ago I knew that it was because of fumes from laying tile in a large building 5 miles away upwind and that the building was being re-occupied even as we were being shooed out of ours. The county reverse 911 told everyone within 5 miles to leave. So we did. Roads were clogged so badly all I could do was go around the block and back to my parking space. Walked across the street to the pizza parlor and had lunch. County was very embarrassed.

Another time I was listening to a deputy report swirling clouds in a thunderstorm over my building. Not a funnel yet but...
No PA announcement. I was the only one that had a clue.

During fire drills I listen to my Security people to see how it's going :-)

A scanner used skillfully is about your best bet.

Going to put all my things into one post.

- Most people will evacuate a building in the way they came it. Makes perfect sense. So, ask and find alternate exits.

- I always start my classes with instructions on where the fire extinguishers, first aid kids, AED's and fire exits are. If you're in a class or presentation and someone doesn't mention them, ask.

- In regarding evacuating the building, it is a real toss-up on whether to stay inside or not if you don't know what is going on. A normal fire, yes. A terrorist attack? I dunno. Could you tell the difference?

I have some degree of protection inside a building than I do fully exposed on a street. Thankfully those who are deranged wanted to make a political statement and put the planes into the buildings where the effects were isolated for a time. They didn't put their flying molotav cocktails into wide open streets where tens of thousands of unprotected people had evacuated to and were watching. If I had to choose a way to die, burning alive (whether heat or chemical), would be the last on my list. Even with all that, I'd still evacuate. Don't forget to take your jacket

- Regarding people not leaving, I'm a Fire Warden, and we've been given explicit instructions that we may disconnect any call or any network connection. In the event of wireless, we can just take the laptop with us. We are fully backed by our CEO and President. I don't think I have the power to physically remove people, but would make a note of who they are, where they are, what clothing they are wearing, so that I may report them to building security and management. I also volunteer in another city in the state, and could possibly give a "lawful order", but not sure of that. Either way, I'm not sticking around for their bad decision to hurt me.

Somehow I have trouble with using 9-11 as an example to illustrate emergency survival behaviours.

One of the problems is that 9-11 was a deliberate and severe bombing attack. That puts it into a class of its own.
The other is that any discussions I have seen about it almost immediately turn into political discussions.

However, even in the 9-11 scenario the people who left made it and those who stayed late were lost.

How the fires started, whether the buildings were knocked over by the planes or if it was all a New World Order or Illuminati plot does not really matter much.

The real point is that nobody had a clue about what was happening and that is the normal situation.
It is true on industrial sites and ships too.
So the thing to do is evacuate as soon as possible.

One thing that I have seen in the news which does worry me is the habit a lot of companies have of locking emergency exits.
I have seen that done in offices, in factories and in nightclubs.

I would also like to mention a bit more about muster points.
If they are well selected they are can be effective refuge station.
Muster points allow you to take a count of who made it out, and hopefully let you know that nobody is left that you need to go back for.
Muster points give your people a definite action plan. They know where to go and go there.
Muster points mean the people have not left work. If it is a false alarm you can get your people back to work after the situation is cleared.
Muster points have more things to recommend them but that is enough to get the idea.

Being in my line of work, I'm picky about the fire alarm system in a hotel I'm staying in. What brand, what level of detection, does it meet the spacing/height requirements for where devices are supposed to be and how they're supposed to be installed, what company installed it, etc...

But, I know what to look for, most people wouldn't. I do it everywhere I go, not just hotels either. Every building I walk into, I can glance around the room and notice every fire alarm device. I'm also quick to let the the owner/manager know if something doesn't look right.

At least part of that can be blamed on fire drills & false alarms. Standing around freezing your behind off while some twit calls roll because someone pulled the fire alarm (probably had an exam that day & hoped to get out of it) or they decided to have a drill tends to make you evaluate the situation first. Holler wolf often enough & people start to ignore you.

As a guy who knows more than 99.99% of the general public about unannounced drills and false alarms, I still GTFO when the fire alarm goes off. You only have to be wrong in your assumption that it's a false alarm once to end up dead.

Unless I'm the guy who set the alarm off, and I know for 100% certain that it's a drill or a system test, I'm headed out of the building as quickly as possible. I'm not betting my life of the possibility (no matter how great the odds) that it's not the real deal. You see the fire alarm guy heading for the door, you'd be wise to follow him.

Which works, until one day, you wake up to find yourself handicapped. Back during the NYC blackout, I shrugged, and started walking the 11 miles home. Made it 1/2 way before I got a lift

Today? I'd need to take a rest (call it a pain break) by the time I got to the ground floor, and every 3-4 blocks after, and when I got to the end of the 4 (or 11 miles), the next stop would be the ER for my leg.

I went from "overweight, but able to walk 5 miles without thinking about it too much" to the MD saying "I don't even want you walking around the supermarket - have your wife do the shopping"

Heh - one of the 3 times I've been in a burning building (yes folks, I've been in 3 building fires, and I'm NOT a fire fighter) was in High school - we were scheduled to have a fire drill at like 10:10am (right after the start of some class - whatever the actual time was) - the alarm came through like 1-2 minutes early, so the few of us who had gotten to the classroom waited for the teacher to show (like I said, we were expecting a drill) - turns out it was a real fire 3 floors up! About 2 minutes later, one of the APs came by and said "didn't you hear the alarm?" we explaine, he said it was a real fire - the 3 of us were the last out! Never saw any smoke, but the FDNY got to put out 2 burning lockers, and we all went back to class about 30 minutes later. One of those cases where fire drills gave us the exact WRONG reaction

Sue, I generally have a great deal of respect for your posts, but this one touched a nerve with me. Please don't take it personally.

This topic - and where the discussion has gone - hits a bit close to home. You see, I was in the World Trade Center on 9/11. I personally knew people who died at their desks (or trying to find their way out - they were last heard from at their desks and didn't make it out).

Before you criticize the people who stayed put, it's helpful to remember the may things that changed from pre-9/11 to post-9/11.

It used to be, if you were on a hijacked plane, the common wisdom and training was to do whatever the hijackers wanted, and nobody would get hurt. Of course, nobody would think of following that advice now.

But here's something that has not changed: in NYC hi-rise office buildings, in the event of a fire we are trained to evacuate the fire floor, and the three floors above and below. In fact, if you are evacuated from your desk, you are told to re-enter the building after descending four flights of stairs, and not to continue all the way to the lobby. Most buildings were not constructed with the appropriate systems to evacuate all of the occupants. If they tried, the fire department would have no way of getting up to the fire floor.

So it's not so surprising that people did not evacuate on their own - we have been trained over and over again that self-evacuation is NOT what you are supposed to do. This training continues to this day, and is supported by the fire marshals and FDNY. Nobody ever considered that what happened on that day could happen, and unfortunately, the training that generally made emergency responses work more smoothly cost lives.

That said, there is a large group of people working in NYC these days who routinely ignore this training and bug out early and often. As you may be able to guess, I'm firmly in this group!

About 9 years ago my office was in a lease space connected to a building that was being remodeled. The entire structure shared a fire alarm system, and it included a large cabinet shop. After weeks of false alarms 8 - 10 times a day, the alarms went totally ignored by all.

One evening working late, the alarm went off again, and my coworker and I ignored it again.

It was the Fire Fighter in full turn-out gear and SCBA that stormed into my office that got me moving... Seems the adjacent cabinet shop was fully involved, but the multiple fire walls and distance had kept all the smoke/fumes out of the building. We heard the sirens, but that was an hourly occurrence since we were located less than 300 feet from a very large fire station.

Lesson learned, GET OUT

That was a very interesting post.
I am usually outside either building high-rise towers or industrial plants like refineries.
My response to alarms is evacuation to muster points far enough removed from the scene both for safety and to allow emergency personnel a clear access route.
Unfortunately in a situation like the WTC bombing a normal muster point likely would not have been far enough away.

High-rise buildings have always had a problem with proper evacuation plans. There is no simple way to provide enough exit points, even if it was architecturally possible the cost in floor space would be prohibitive. You would end up losing more area than you gained by adding the extra floors.
(Lets not even mention wheel chair accessibility here)

Thank you Jesselp for pointing out the vertical traffic problem and the limits it places on evacuation plans.

They weren't nice enough to tell us when the drills were. Drills or false alarms were unannounced & more than a few times were shirt sleeves in 40* weather. I tend to think drills because I don't remember emergency units showing up.

Jesselp, I am not taking offense at your post --- I am assuming that you are totally correct.

"So it's not so surprising that people did not evacuate on their own - we have been trained over and over again that self- evacuation is NOT what you are supposed to do."

No one is going to 'train' me to ignore what could turn into a life-threatening situation. NO ONE. If the people in command (and I simply don't care if it IS 'supported by the fire marshals and FDNY') are of the opinion that they are going to do my thinking for me, they are mistaken (and out of their effing minds).

Their departmental egos and assumptions helped cost 2,605 people their lives, and injured a few thousand more.

How many disasters were followed by bureaucrats saying, "But we didn't think anything like this would ever happen"?

Just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't.

Sue

It "helped" that the APs son was in my homeroom - we were not offically told, but we all knew

Alarms go off I get out while checking that the area I am exiting to is safe. What I would have done on 9/1 will never be known. Would I have been far enough away when the towers went down? I hope so. But the EX-firefighter in me may have had me helping people leave the building.

Jesselp -- I will not even begin to try and imagine what that day was like for you and the days, weeks, months and years that followed. Just reading accounts of being in the WTC is chilling. What we in Washington went through that day, especially those of us who were in certain high-profile targets, cannot be fully appreciated by those who weren't there. It was surreal, and I don't think that I will ever get totally over it unless I lose those memories.

Have you read "102 Minutes?" I was fascinated by its discussion of the lobbying over the NYC building codes which resulted in the 1968 changes in the code that made way for construction of the WTC.

Since Desert Storm, friends and I had been saying it was not a question of whether DC would be hit someday, but only when and how. Yet we stayed. We stay because we don't believe, or choose not to consider, that it will happen in the next second, or the next hour, or this day. And this becomes home and career base, so we stay.

When it happened on 9/11, when the Pentagon was hit and news reports of truck bomb at the State Department and fire at the OEOB and more incoming hostile flights, we were stunned. Many were stunned stupid. The images of what was happening at the WTC and smoke pouring out of the Pentagon, it was an indescribable situation to be in as it was unfolding in real-time.

No one can really know what they're going to do in such a crisis situation until the situation arises. Hopefully the right instincts will prevail. Having these discussions, I think, increases the chances that we'll do the right thing if an emergency situation arises.

If something happens this afternoon, I will be shocked at that instant. But better prepared than on 9/11. Better prepared for anything: terrorist attack or an accidental fire.

Am_Fear_Liath_Mor, thank you very much for mentioning the elephant in the room.



and your second post re: structural steel and fire.

Part of my mindset of being equipped is being open to the "unthinkable" as well as laws of cause and effect (whether they be psychological, social, governmental or physical).

Experience has taught me that governments and organizations can lie, deceive, withhold information or cover up information -- even in "unthinkable" ways. This is a necessary truth through which I must filter facts, rumors, lack of information, etc. when faced with a call to evacuate or to respond to an emergency. Typically, of course, such responses must be made quickly, with incomplete information and some emotional and physical turmoil.

I understand the need for community-mindedness and the efficiency of habitual compliance, but I'm working to "untrain" my indoctrinated mentality of compliance. The aftermath of 9/11 has especially helped me in this regard. Now I am loathe to relinquish my self-reliance and personal responsibility to "officials."

Speaking of fire alarms - we just had an alarm up on the 10th floor of the building I work in (I'm on the 8th) - folks did the right thing (evacuate down 2 floors - aka my floor), but the bad one - when they grabbed the fire phone - NO ONE ANSWERED!! 10 minutes - no one answered - many just walked out. The only reason I knew was my office is right by the lobby/staircase where the phone is

I saw what was going on, had my bag grabbed, let the folks on my floor know what was going on, and was standing by the warden phone (as I'm the 8th floor warden).

We got the all clear

What was interesting was that they got the 'alert tone' (aka the 'Macys tone') which is no longer supposed to be used. For the last N years (I think it was changed post 9/11) is that you ever get the 'full alarm' or NOTHING

Check with your local fire marshal about the alert tone on a voice evacuation system. Different jurisdictions have different rules about some things. Your local AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction - usually the fire marshal) can set requirements above and beyond what national fire codes require.

As to the fire phone, I'd definitely have someone check it out, ASAP.

Like I said - I'm the floor warden, and I've talked with the FDNY about it - I'll be having a talk with building management and the safety director in the morning

Depending on what brand/model of voice evacuation panel it is, it's probably an easy fix for the fire alarm company to change the settings.

I haven't experienced much yet in the floor above/floor below-type stuff. We don't have a whole lot of tall buildings here, and a good chunk of the tall buildings that are here are quite old. I have a good bit of studying to do before October 10th (my NICET level II and III test date) and 2 of the elements I'm testing on are emergency voice/alarm communication systems and emergency evacuation signals.