Because full-scale evacuations of tall buildings are rare, little is known about how readily and rapidly these buildings can be evacuated and what factors serve as facilitators or barriers to the process.
In general, factors that affected people decision to begin evacuating:
1) perceived ability to walk down multiple flights of stairs;
2) knowledge of stairwell locations and whether individual stairwells led to street level exits;
3) deciding which route to take (e.g., stairs or elevators) might have delayed evacuation progress for others.
People stop and assist others who are in poor physical condition will delay the progress of evaucation.
For these reasons, it is suggested that preparedness planning for total evacuation of multistorey buildings, either business or residential at the individual, organizational, and building environmental levels can facilitate rapid evacuation.
To ensure adequate readiness, I personnally believed that all the postings from similar initiatives on the related subjects in this FORUM can help inform builders, developers, insurance companies, employee groups, and emergency planners about risk-reduction strategies. Information might be of value to help workers, management, and local authorities develop and evaluate model emergency preparedness programs for high-rise occupancies.
