The World Trade Center and the 9/11 Tragedy
The World Trade Center has been identified as the hub of business activity in the United States. The 9/11 tragedy is regarded as the worst terrorist strike on the United States of America (Silk, 2017). The World Trade Center disaster remains one of the most significant terrorist assaults in American history, revolutionizing the work of firemen. The attack is known to have claimed the lives of around 2800 people, 300 of them were firefighters (Neuhaus, 2016). The majority of the firefighters killed in the tragedy were emergency professionals whose primary duty was to rescue those trapped within the structure. The fire department of New York is known to have led the efforts to rescue the persons who were trapped in the building at the time of the attack. However, due to inadequate preparation by the fire department to handle a crisis of such magnitude, many lives were lost. The fire department underestimated the danger posed by the impact of the planes when they collided with the building. They did not take into account the possibility of the building collapsing earlier than anticipated.
Construction Phase and Safety Measures
During the construction phase of the world trade center, there were a set of safety measures that were put in place to enhance the resilience of the building to environmental and human-caused tragedies. For example, the walls of the buildings were designed to withstand the winds that strangest hurricane. Additionally, the proposal by the fire department to have two staircases in each building was advanced to three by the designers of such structure.
Emergency Response and Lessons Learned
The fire department was significant in the emergency response after the terror attack. They concentrated their operations in rescuing the trapped occupants of the building, and they also assisted in the evacuation. The attack has been a lesson for the fire department on how they ought to prepare for the high magnitude attacks based on the imminent danger that is posed at an accident scene. In the case of the September 11 attack, the leadership of the fire department was divided on whether the building could entirely collapse or if a partial collapse was imminent. The fire report of the building after the attack asserts that there were safety tradeoffs in the architecture that was foreign to the fire department, thus, hampering the efforts of preventing the loss of lives that was evident.
Improving Fire Safety and Building Codes
First, the fire report of the building establishes that there were inadequate automatic fire sprinklers within the building, thereby undermining the capacity of the fire department to handle the risks associated with the fire risks. The need for intercombination with other fire departments in all the other states is an issue that is necessary based on the way that the crisis was handled during the world trade center terrorist attack (Silk, 2017). Additionally, there is a need to equip the staff working for the fire services with the necessary skills that they need to improve their service delivery. For example, the need to acquire paramedical skills would enable them to offer essential medical services to those injured and those trapped in the rubbles, thus, minimizing the number of fatalities recorded in the accident scene.
Building Safety Codes and Regulations
Second, the attack led to changing of building safety codes. The International Code Council (ICC) requires all buildings more than 120 feet to have elevators to allow firefighters to access all areas with their heavy equipment easily (Aprill, 2016). The ICC needs buildings to have a provision for emergency elevators that can be used in case of emergency evacuation without having to wait for emergency personnel assistance. The elevators in the twin towers were not usable, therefore, preventing the fire department from having adequate access to the building. It is also essential for buildings that are 420 feet tall or more to have an extra staircase as requisite OF the ICC (Aprill, 2016). The elevators and stairs are required to have shafts that are made of impact resistant materials to increase their safety of the occupants during a fire. Despite having three stairways in the building, their structure made it complicated for movement from one to the other.
Fire Resistance and Communication Systems
Skyscrapers that are more than 420 feet are required to have a high standard for fire resistance to ensure the threshold for collapsing due to fire is raised. This includes providing buildings that are 75 feet tall or more have additional fireproofing which will make it unlikely for it to be disintegrated during an explosion (Aprill, 2016). Structures are necessary for buildings to have self-luminous exit pathways and stairways that ensure adequate lighting when all other sources of light fail due to emergencies situations such as fire. It is a prerequisite for all buildings to have radio coverage schemes within the structures to ensure that emergency personnel can efficiently communicate within the building and with other teams outside the building during the emergency response. This ensures that there is coordination with all members involved in the emergency response and thus providing that communication is passed swiftly. For instance, during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, adequate communication between the teams outside and those inside the building would have ensured the smooth running of the operation (Silk, 2017). The communication systems used during the attack were overwhelmed by the loads of work they were required to perform while some entirely collapsed thus the importance of having radio communication systems within the building. In addition to these mandatory guidelines for skyscraper buildings, the ICC recommends the government, engineers, and building owners to conduct threat and risk assessment to ensure preventive measure for attacks that can cause explosions and fires to the buildings. Buildings are also required to have cementations of a fire-resistant coating to provide sufficient protection in case of explosions and reduce the likelihood of the building collapsing.
Improved Coordination and Preparedness
The fire departments have learned of the importance of inter-coordinating their activities at all times and ensuring that communication lines prior and during a crisis are all useful to facilitate intercommunication. The lack of activation of the repeater system before the attack is an indication of lack of preparedness by the fire department in response to any crisis that would have hit the United States. Seemingly, before the attack, the training and work of the firefighters were only limited to putting off fires and conducting rescue missions in the minor accident scene. There is a clear indication that the fire department was not prepared for the handling of any terrorist attacks (Silk, 2017). The vulnerability of the United States to any external attack is a concept that seems to have been foreign to the firefighting departments. During the attacks, many state agencies were involved in the rescue mission but did not have a central unit of control nor a single command to inter-coordinate their affairs. Such has been documented as a reason for the inadequate support that they issued to those trapped within the building. Notably, the police and the firefighters, before the attacks, did not have the same call system and could understand each other when put together on the same radio infrastructure owing to the different codes that they use in communication. As such, the police could not respond to early warnings that were sent by the firefighters, a short while before the attack.
Enhanced Preparedness and Interoperability
Currently, the police department engages the firefighters in setting up measures to avert any predicted loss of lives and property where it has been ascertained that an attack is likely to be carried out. The firefighting department is no longer reactionary to the calamities that face the United States but is proactive based on the early warning that they receive from the intelligence agencies. The command center between the police department and the firefighters derive their orders from the information that they know regarding and existent attack or a potential attack to ensure efficacy ion any rescue mission that ought to be carried out. In the 9/11 attacks, the FDNY staff did not receive any evacuation order, an issue that led to the death of more than 300 firefighters and emergency rescue officers (Neuhaus, 2016). Currently, the state Department of Homeland security has created interoperability amongst the various rescue and police departments that enable them to inter-coordinate based on the shared standard operating procedures.
References
Aprill, E. P. (2016). Charitable Class, Disaster Relief, and First Responders.
Neuhaus, J. (2016). Can we counteract the September 11 conspiracy meme? An argument for using the documentary 9/11 in the American survey. Teaching History: A Journal of Methods, 41(1), 5-22.
Silk, M. (2017). Sporting spectacle, 9/11 and the reconstitution of the American nation. Sport and National Identities: Globalization and Conflict, 2.
