Big Topic at the Office: Is It Safe? : Assessment, Reflection After First Interstate Fire
When the Business and Industry Council for Emergency Planning and Preparedness met Thursday morning in downtown Los Angeles, it planned to present First Interstate Bank an award for developing a new disaster response plan.
No one from the bank showed up to claim the honor.
Dozens of safety officials, in fact, missed the meeting, choosing instead to stay at their desks to review disaster plans, check safety systems and issue reassurances to high-rise office workers in the wake of the deadly blaze late Wednesday at the First Interstate Bank Building.
Many of the workers who fought jammed freeways and surface streets to report to jobs Thursday morning at neighboring skyscrapers talked, meanwhile, of little but the fire--especially those who work in other pre-1974 buildings, some as tall as 52 stories, that also lack automatic sprinkler systems.
“It’s scary--we don’t have them either,” said Roberta Biandino, a new-accounts manager at Shearson Lehman Bros., who held a few scorched sheets of paper that had floated to the street from the charred First Interstate building. “Even though we are on the sixth floor, I still don’t feel comfortable. It’s scary that heat can get so intense.”
Some workers touched by the blaze remained unshaken, though. “That’s our floor up there. It’s been eaten up,” said Charles Tolbert, 23, an assistant supervisor in First Interstate’s trust department, as he pointed to the 10th floor of the 62-story tower. “I wouldn’t have any fear going back, knowing that we will be extra cautious.”
A number of companies that own, manage or rent space in downtown skyscrapers seized the occasion to remind workers and tenants of basic emergency procedures and to soothe concerns that other high-rises might be unprepared for fires.
“Last night’s fire at First Interstate is a grim reminder of the impact fire can have on a high-rise building, its business occupants and human lives,” began a memo issued by Stephanie H. Masaki-Schatz, Arco’s manager of corporate emergency planning, and circulated through the 32 floors of the 52-story Arco plaza building occupied by the petroleum company.
Security Pacific used its daily noontime bulletin to tell its 5,000 employees at 55-story Security Pacific Plaza that the building “is in full compliance with current safety regulations and that all reasonable precautions have been taken to prevent any such tragedy in the headquarters building.”
The bulletin outlined some of the emergency preparedness activities regularly undertaken at the building, most of them typical for downtown skyscrapers. Fire alarms and sprinklers are tested monthly, safety and security personnel receive regular disaster response training, evacuation drills are conducted and an audiovisual program on emergency procedures is presented frequently.
The bank’s purpose in issuing the bulletin, said spokeswoman Sue Taha, was “the redistribution of information that’s available everyday but is never as important to individuals as it is in the face of an immediate event.”
Industrial safety officials said Thursday they were hopeful that the First Interstate fire, like the Oct. 1 earthquake, would spur downtown building owners and workers to take more seriously the need to plan for emergencies.
“You can expect in an earthquake to have a lot of these fires,” said Larry R. Ehrmann, USC’s safety administrator and president of the group that planned Thursday to honor First Interstate’s safety programs. “We’re not capable of handling them, unless people on an individual basis have the ability to deal with them and put them out while they’re small. The first defense is the people who are there.”
Little Interest
Managers of multi-tenant skyscrapers, especially, say they find it hard to convince their renters to participate in safety training and exercises.
“There is a high degree of frustration I’ve experienced in my association with some high-rise buildings where the tenants become very complacent about this,” said W. Ronald Price, executive vice president of Wilshire Pacific Realty and Management, which manages the 38-story tower at 1100 Wilshire Blvd. and other Los Angeles office buildings.
“We send them a notice that it’s time for the annual fire drill,” Price said, “and some tenants go out of their way to make sure they’re all out to lunch or they plan their itineraries for the business day so they won’t be around for the drill.”
On Thursday, though, some high-rise workers seemed acutely interested in preparing themselves for potential disasters. Masaki-Schatz, of ARCO, said her office had been deluged with requests from floor safety team leaders for training sessions. The two ARCO Plaza towers do not yet have sprinkler systems, though plans call for systems to be in operation next March.
Many who work downtown, though, were remarkably sanguine about the late-night blaze.
“I’m not as worried as I was before because now I know they can rescue you from a roof,” said Ella Douglas, who works on the 46th floor of the ARCO Tower.
Denise Ramsey, 48, a First Interstate trust department administrator who worked on the burned-out 11th floor of the bank’s headquarters, said she, too, was not afraid to work in a skyscraper.
“If it’s your time, it’s your time,” Ramsey said. “It doesn’t matter where you are.”
Keith Bradsher, Jesus Sanchez and Nancy Yoshihara contributed to this report.
Main stories, Part I
