DISASTER: World Trade Center studies

Canadians will hear first-hand what it was like dealing with the World Trade Center collapse and fire at a seminar in Toronto in May.

The Canadian Fire Safety Association/Toronto Fire Services High-Rise Seminar on May 13-14 at the Inn on the Park will hear from Jerry Tracy, Battalion Chief of the New York Fire Department, and Curtis S.D. Massey, whose company developed disaster plans for the search and rescue operations in the aftermath of September 11.

A handful of Canadians are involved in studies to see what lessons can be gleaned from the disaster. Dr. Guylne Proulx, a researcher with Canada’s National Research Council, will be presenting papers at both the Toronto conference and at the National Fire Protection Association World Congress in Minneapolis on May 21. Ms. Proulx studied the evacuation of occupants from the World Trade Center during the 1993 bomb attack, after which changes were made to the stairwell systems. At the NFPA conference she is presenting a paper with Rita Fahy of the NFPA comparing the evacuations of 1993 with how the evacuation went in September 11 according to the media reports.

Another Canadian expert from the National Research Council of Canada is on a team investigating the structural collapse of the towers and how the fire spread and contributed to the fall of the other towers. Dr. Ventakesh Kodur, P.Eng., a fire researcher at the Institute for Research in Construction, was on the Building Performance Assessment Team that visited Ground Zero at the beginning of October and over six days collected data and evidence on how the buildings performed under the extreme conditions. BPAT will be issuing a report this spring.