Re: Fire escape tubes etc. article is online.

["Shapiro, Mark" <mshapiro@EXCHANGE.FULLERTON.EDU>]

Dear Tony et al.,

The idea of "life chutes" is an old one.  I can remember that such chutes
were standard equipment on the aerial ladder trucks operated by the fire
department in Berkeley, CA (and most likely elsewhere) until the early
1960's.  The chute was made of canvas and designed to hook onto the top of
the aerial ladder.  It then was unfolded down the ladder and extended out
beyond the ladder turntable onto the street, where several firefighter would
grasp handles on the sides of the chute and pull it away from the ladder
rungs.

People would then be able to slide down the chute to safety.  The chute was
intended to be used as a last resort when large numbers of people had to be
removed from the upper stories or roof of a building in a short time.  The
reason that this was considered a last resort is that firefighters expected
that many of those using the chute would be seriously injured in the
descent.  I don't know if these chutes were ever used in an actual rescue
situation, and I don't think any are in use today.

There is a company in Denmark that manufactures rescue slides that are
included as part of life raft systems for ships.
http://www.viking-life.com/usr/viking/vikingdotcom.nsf/OpenerFrameset?openfr
ameset
These work pretty well, but it is not clear if they would work at skyscraper
heights....

Mark Shapiro
http://www.IrascibleProfessor.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Wayne [mailto:wayne@PEN.K12.VA.US]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 9:05 AM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Fire escape tubes etc. article is online.


FYI,
The article referred to below can also be found on the web at

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/09/science/physical/09ESCA.html

To view it will require you to sing up for the NYT web edition (It's free.)
-Tony

> on 10/10/01 6:41 PM, Ludwik Kowalski at kowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU
wrote:
> > The Science section of The New York Times (October 9, 2001,
> > page F4) has an article about innovative approaches to fire
> > escape systems. They say that 25 traffic control towers at the
> > Air Force bases (not very high structures) already have escape
> > tubes slung from roofs and windows. People (up to 24 at the
> > same time) can slide down for safety, they say. Designed for
> > up to 15 stories they can be used to slide down to the roofs of
> > nearby buildings. Parachutes, cables and flying platform
> > approaches are also described in this article.
> > Ludwik Kowalski