SKYDIVING THE FIRE ESCAPE

[Gian]

Indoor skydiving apparrently works by means of a "vertical windtunnel" blasting air upwards at about 150mph, so novice skydivers can gain experience of floating.

Could vertical windtunnels be installed on a much larger scale around very tall buildings to be uncovered and switched on in the event of a rapid evacuation? Would it be possible for people to have jumped from the top of the World Trade Centre at 1368 ft to be caught safely in a vertical windtunnel at the bottom?

Cheerz

GIAN🙂XXX

[swansont]

The wind tunnels work because the air can’t escape sideways. You’d need to construct similar barriers around buildings, and you’d have to get air in via fans and conduits at and below ground level. There’s also the issue of air escaping into the buildings when people open the window to jump. Possible? Perhaps. Practical? No. How often do you need to escape a building by jumping? This sounds like a movie plot situation. 

Why not just issue base-jumping chutes that wouldn’t get used?

 

[Gian]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

The wind tunnels work because the air can’t escape sideways. You’d need to construct similar barriers around buildings, and you’d have to get air in via fans and conduits at and below ground level. There’s also the issue of air escaping into the buildings when people open the window to jump. Possible? Perhaps. Practical? No. How often do you need to escape a building by jumping? This sounds like a movie plot situation. 

Why not just issue base-jumping chutes that wouldn’t get used?

 

Well it doesn't happen very often, but it happened on 9/11

What do you mean by base-jumping chute? 🙂

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Gian said:

Well it doesn't happen very often, but it happened on 9/11

So basically a one-off. 

Low-risk.

1 hour ago, Gian said:

What do you mean by base-jumping chute? 🙂

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASE_jumping

[Gian]

7 hours ago, swansont said:

So basically a one-off. 

Low-risk.

It happened where I live in the UK; in 2017 a residential tower block called Grenfell Tower which was a mere 24 storeys went up in flames, and people couldn't escape from the upper floors above the fire, so 72 lives were lost.

What about a frame at the foot of the building with several layers of flexible material like a multilayered trampoline. Could a fall from the top of the WTC 1300ft be broken at the ground by a succession of layers?

I know it sounds a bit far-fetched, but as things are there seems no way of rapidly evacuating those insanely high skyscrapers you have in America.
I've not been able to establish what if any evacuation mechanisms there are inside the new World Trade Center building

"You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill 10,000 in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and bringing out bodies until somebody asks us how to build them."

STEVE MCQUEEN as Chief Fire Officer O'Halloran. The Towering Inferno. 1974

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Gian said:

You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill 10,000 in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and bringing out bodies until somebody asks us how to build them."

STEVE MCQUEEN as Chief Fire Officer O'Halloran. The Towering Inferno. 1974

As I said, it’s a movie plot situation. 

People tend to overestimate the risk of exceedingly rare events. In the US, around 40,000 people die from unintentional falls every year. Worldwide it was around 684,000. You're worried about a tiny fraction of that.

[John Cuthber]

8 hours ago, Gian said:

It happened where I live in the UK; in 2017 a residential tower block called Grenfell Tower which was a mere 24 storeys went up in flames,

That happened because someone cut corners on a relatively cheap simple thing (insulating cladding) to save money.
How would you prevent that happening with your very expensive idea?

In what way is your idea better than having a simple fire escape (of the sort I see in American films)?

https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/fire-escapes/

Edited June 13 by John Cuthber

[Gian]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

 

27 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

That happened because someone cut corners on a relatively cheap simple thing (insulating cladding) to save money.
How would you prevent that happening with your very expensive idea?

In what way is your idea better than having a simple fire escape (of the sort I see in American films)?

https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/fire-escapes/

There should be many different ways of vacating a tower block, especially insanely large ones. If Grenfell tower victims had been able to jump into a safety net or equivalent many more might have survived. 

As for being expensive, you can't put a value on human life, and the landlords of the World Trade Center aren't exactly short of a bob or 2

GIAN🙂XXX

4 hours ago, swansont said:

As I said, it’s a movie plot situation. 

People tend to overestimate the risk of exceedingly rare events. In the US, around 40,000 people die from unintentional falls every year. Worldwide it was around 684,000. You're worried about a tiny fraction of that.

That's 684000 human beings, not numbers.

If we can reduce that number by just 1 human being it's worth it.  And if you were that 1 human being I'm sure you'd agree

Cheerz 

GIAN🙂XXX

Edited June 13 by Gian

[Sensei]

4 minutes ago, Gian said:

As for being expensive, you can't put a value on human life,

..as almost every war shows, human life is almost worthless to politicians..

[sethoflagos]

2 minutes ago, Gian said:

... If Grenfell tower victims had been able to jump into a safety net or equivalent they could have done so.

GIAN🙂

Except the conflagration at Grenfell was due to burning of the exterior cladding so no escape route that way.

[Sensei]

17 minutes ago, Gian said:

That's 684000 human beings, not numbers.

If we can reduce that number by just 1 human being it's worth it.  And if you were that 1 human being I'm sure you'd agree

When a skyscraper is built, in some projects, mostly in developed countries, nets are installed every few floors to catch falling builders (Building Safety Regulations etc).. Once construction is complete, the nets are removed. Nowadays, windows in skyscrapers are often designed in such a way that they cannot be opened or broken, to prevent people from committing suicide by breaking them and jumping out.

If someone wants to commit suicide, they will find a way around anyway..

[zapatos]

9 hours ago, Gian said:

I've not been able to establish what if any evacuation mechanisms there are inside the new World Trade Center building

 

Elevators and stairs.

40 minutes ago, Gian said:

As for being expensive, you can't put a value on human life

Yes you can. It is done by insurance companies, families, governments, businesses and courts every single day.

41 minutes ago, Gian said:

If we can reduce that number by just 1 human being it's worth it. 

It's worth what exactly? $10 billion? $100 billion? 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Gian said:

As for being expensive, you can't put a value on human life,

Sure you can. We do it all the time. There are insurance settlements and civil judgements for wrongful death which do precisely that. We make compromises on safety because of cost in a lot of products, such as automobiles — they could be a lot safer, but then the cheapest car wouldn’t be affordable to the masses. Same thing with roadways and pedestrian safety. 

“Estimates for the value of a life are used to compare the life-saving and risk-reduction benefits of new policies, regulations, and projects against a variety of other factors,[2] often using a cost-benefit analysis.[3]”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

[John Cuthber]

21 hours ago, Gian said:

As for being expensive, you can't put a value on human life,

I don't need to.
I need a fire escape. One costs a thousand pounds; one costs ten thousand.
Both work.
Why would I buy the expensive one (which depends on having an electricity supply and may fail)

As you say, it would be better to have more exit routes. 
Isn't it better to install 2 ordinary fire escape ladders and have enough money left over for a sprinkler system too?

Edited June 14 by John Cuthber

[Gian]

48 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

I don't need to.
I need a fire escape. One costs a thousand pounds; one costs ten thousand.
Both work.
Why would I buy the expensive one (which depends on having an electricity supply and may fail)

As you say, it would be better to have more exit routes. 
Isn't it better to install 2 ordinary fire escape ladders and have enough money left over for a sprinkler system too?

Absolutely agree. 

Tbh to make these mega-skyscrapers safe would not I think be very expensive. You're right, the best way is to have as many different rapid evacuation mechanisms as possible.

When building it, imagine an outer frame over the whole building - it would look like builders scaffolding - with a honeycomb of metal fire escape steps from top to bottom. Handholds on the outer skin for those brave souls who want to try climbing down (one poor sod was filmed trying to do so in the WTC on 9/11 but of course with nothing to hold onto he fell)

100 x 1300 ft ropes automatically let down from the roof, parachutes, anything.

None of these is foolproof of course (if one were able to climb down the outside of the building it would probably take 2 hours to reach the ground) and were the WTC to happen again the loss life would still be v high but a few additional mechanisms would at least have helped to save some lives

Edited June 14 by Gian

[John Cuthber]

44 minutes ago, Gian said:

would not I think be very expensive

Please provide your basis for a cost estimate.

45 minutes ago, Gian said:

Handholds on the outer skin for those brave souls who want to try climbing down

Have you heard of secuity?

 

[swansont]

44 minutes ago, Gian said:

Tbh to make these mega-skyscrapers safe would not I think be very expensive. You're right, the best way is to have as many different rapid evacuation mechanisms as possible.

Why not just have multiple stairwells?

44 minutes ago, Gian said:

When building it, imagine an outer frame over the whole building - it would look like builders scaffolding - with a honeycomb of metal fire escape steps from top to bottom. Handholds on the outer skin for those brave souls who want to try climbing down (one poor sod was filmed trying to do so in the WTC on 9/11 but of course with nothing to hold onto he fell)

100 x 1300 ft ropes automatically let down from the roof, parachutes, anything.

Ropes could be deployed in elevator shafts. No need to go outside.

 

[John Cuthber]

For many people, and many fires, "shelter in place" is a much better idea than learning to abseil on a 1300 foot rope.
 

[Gian]

16 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

For many people, and many fires, "shelter in place" is a much better idea than learning to abseil on a 1300 foot rope.
 

Most of the time that's true. An apartment in a skyscraper is usually one large concrete box, so it's best to lock yourself inside in the event of a fire.

But it can't be guaranteed that will always be the case🔥

[dimreepr]

On 6/16/2024 at 12:12 PM, Gian said:

Most of the time that's true. An apartment in a skyscraper is usually one large concrete box, so it's best to lock yourself inside in the event of a fire.

But it can't be guaranteed that will always be the case🔥

Do you sleep with your rope?