progress memo 2 - Giegerich

I am making good progress with my final story. I found a person who was able to escape the 68th floor of the WTC becuase he had been thoroughly trained prior to the attacks and he told a vivid story of his experience on 9/11, and spoke about how important training is and actually said, "It is very safe for me to say that I am only alive today becuase of the training me and my colleagues received prior to 9/11." Woohoo. Color! His name is Greg Trevor and he was the media director for Port Authority and is now holding a similar office at Rutgers University.

I've also attended a fire safety directors training course where the fire fighter, Joe Cunningham, led a four hour class (one of five the course consists of) to certify building personnel, who are mostly security guards, to become safety directors of their buildings. They will be responsible for knowing what to do in case of a fire on any floor: how to communicate with the people on the floor and how to communicate efficiently with the fire department in order to act quickly and safely. Most of the 12 people there were enthusiasitc and recognized the need for such boring certification classes and were happy to be learning how best to protect the people in their buildings.

Cunningham is going to hook me up with some people he knows that have saved lives and fought fires thanks to good training.

A source at the fire department has provided me with some statisitcs on buildings in NY and how many have already submitted Emergency Action Plans to the fire department. According to the reliable source, there are about 1800 buildings who require EAPs to be filed with the fire department. Approximately 900 have submitted plans and only 370 have submitted plans that have been accepted by FDNY. EAPs were mandated in 2006, why is it taking so long for buildings to come up with plans? Becuase they take money, time (about three months), experts, and need to go through an approval process. Details of the process will be covered in my story, to a degree that informs but does not cause drowsiness.

I've also learned that some people in buildings near the steam pipe explosion in 2006 knew to stay in their offices becuase of possible toxins in the air due to training prior to the incident. I am looking into trying to speak to one or more of these people.

The story is taking the form of how training saves lives. Thousands of people lost their lives on 9/11, training or no training made no difference in many of those deaths, but, as Greg Trevor explained, training did save his life and the lives of many on his floor, almost all on his floor. Real changes have been made on a number of levels that are helping to ensure that people can deal with any type of emergency that can happen in hi-rises in NYC.

I think I need to do a little more work to find some statistics and have had a number of sources from the International Association of Emergency Managers, BOMA, FEMA, and the New York State Emergency Managers Office, call me back. I need to return their calls and that should complete my interviews and virtually all my research. I need to find out how much a fine for failing to submit an EAP is, how much emergency management consultants charge customers for the creation of EAP plans, how many buildings, total, need EAPs (from BOMA), and I need to better understand the different classes of buildings, and learn exactly what makes a Class E building- commerical hi-rise buildings, or hotels or motels.