Sooyeon's progress memo 2 -

Werner Schmidt, Public information officer at United Nations said :

The UN is international territory. It is applying New York City building, safety and fire codes, but on a voluntary basis.
There are basically three areas in which the UN is addressing the violations of the NYC fire safety code which were stated by the FDNY in 2006 and 2007:

• the UN has installed hundreds of smoke detectors;
• the UN by July will complete installing compartmentalization between the buildings resp. between parts of the buildings of the Headquarters complex, so in case of an incident the affected area can be isolated from other areas and smoke does not get transported throughout the complex by ventilation);
• the UN is training a number of their safety and security officers as FDNY-certified fire directors.

Paul Zachary, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), whose office is on 36^th floor, said :

“The building is really old. In side, particularly, we can’t renovate very easily. Imagine, house from 1950s, hasn’t been that much renovation. Then, make it a 39 stores skyscraper. It’s not very comprehensive changes no fire training”

Asked if he had any fire safety training or been in fire alarm test, “I don’t know how the fire alarm sounds like. I’m not even sure we even actually have them. I also don’t see the boxes, like red boxes with hammers and stuff. I don’t see those in the building.” He also added, “After 9/11, I’m not sure if there has been any physical changes, but definitely, there has been mental one, which is, I feel, the concern about working in that building in particular. It’s such an iconic building like WTC."