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Columbia to Study Evacuation Procedures
By EDWARD WYATT
December 4, 2002

Researchers at Columbia University are embarking on a three-year study of the evacuation of the World Trade Center twin towers during the terrorist attack to help determine how individual behavior, the structure of the buildings and emergency management procedures affected who survived and why.

The injury prevention program at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded a $1.5 million grant to the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the Mailman School of Public Health to finance the study, university officials said.

Since the 9/11 attack, public health researchers have inquired into the array of conditions related to the disaster, including studies of the structural factors that led to the collapse of the towers, the response of emergency workers and the health-related effects of the collapse of the buildings and the cleanup afterward.

But relatively few of those efforts have focused on the more than 12,000 people who were safely evacuated from the towers, said Robyn Gershon, an associate professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia, who is one of the principal investigators in the study.

"The best estimates are that about 1,200 people were trapped in the buildings at the time of the collapse below the points of impact," Dr. Gershon said. "This is an opportunity to look at what might have saved those people, at least."

Sue Binder, director of the injury prevention center, said the study was intended to help determine what information is most needed by people to help them make decisions during a catastrophic event.

"There was a time when people believed that in a disaster people panicked," Dr. Binder said. "We have since learned that many people actually make good decisions, but they are based on inadequate information."

To determine how occupants of the trade center towers acted, researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and New York University will also participate in the study, which will be conducted in two parts. Beginning in May, the researchers hope to recruit and interview about 150 people, including people who safely fled the building that day, as well as building managers, public safety experts and rescue workers, Dr. Gershon said.

In early 2004, following analysis of the information gathered from interviews, questionnaires will be sent to as many as 5,000 people who were in the towers. The questionnaires will seek to determine which types of companies had in place evacuation or emergency plans and how well they were executed.

Dr. Gershon said that she and Stephen Morse, the director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness, the study's other principal investigator, have received letters of support for the study from all the agencies involved in the management and oversight of the buildings, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site, and the city's Department of Buildings.

Among other studies, the Department of Buildings has a task force that is studying possible changes in how high-rise buildings are protected against fire and structural damage, and how they are evacuated. The task force's recommendations are scheduled to be released this month, Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the department, said. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is also conducting a federal study of the collapse of the twin towers, which will include research on the application of evacuation procedures.

So far, relatively few changes have been made in evacuation procedures for high-rise buildings in New York City or elsewhere since 9/11, said Sally Regenhard, founder of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign and the mother of a firefighter who was killed that day.

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© Copyright (c) 2002, NY Times

Sally Regenhard,
Chairperson

P. O. Box 70
Woodlawn Station
Bronx, NY 10470
SallyR@SkyscraperSafety.org

Monica Gabrielle,
Co-Chairperson

P. O. Box 70
Woodlawn Station
Bronx, NY 10470
monicagabrielle@earthlink.net