MR. FRIER: Mr. Chairman, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. By way of introduction, my name is Jeff Frier and I'm working for Carnival Ship as a member of the ICC working group looking at new proposals for passenger vessels.
Before joining Carnival, I worked for one of the world's largest classification facilities.
During my time, I became a qualified auditor for ship safety management system. The basis of understanding for maritime rules and regulations together with an appreciation of emergency and evacuation procedures, is an essential part of my work in developing new passenger ship designs. It enables us to become an integral part of the arrangement, for example, understanding process for which passenger assemble in emergency, allows architects to ensure areas of safe refuge are correctly located.
These procedures are aspects that ICCL refer to between ship and land base facility.
To clarify this point, I would like to illustrate what happens during a typical emergency situation on a cruise ship. I would like to show what procedures are in place and how a trained professional deal with the situation.
However, before looking at these, I would like to emphasize the training that is an essential part of safety on Board the ship.
Everyone that signs on as a crew member must have basic training in shipboard safety. This is known as the standard office training certification and watch keeping, the STCW code and mandatory on all ships.
In addition, each crew member will have responsibilities that are described in the ship's master list. As the name implies, the master list is a register of all the ship's personnel.
Regular training with the emergency situations will take place on Board and vessels sailing to the states at least once a quarter, will be verification, inspection by the U.S. Coastguard.
Typically, this will cover emergency situations such as fire and drill.
This first picture shows inspectors from the Coast Guard interviewing crew members to make sure they are familiar with emergency procedures and their responsibilities.
So what does happen in the event of a fallout from the following stages are typical but the process and extinguished the first indication would be an alarm going into alert.
Here we see a picture of a smoke alarm mounting on a ceiling panel.
On a large, upward of 500 of these, means that the alarm panel on the bridge or safety sensor can be shown here, identifies the smoke alarm and indicates the precise location of any fire.
Incidentally, in the background of this picture with the smoke detector, there is a sprinkler head which is a part of the fix part system, fitted throughout the ship.
On receiving alert, crew announcement will be made and message given on the public address system. This alert is a quick response team to the location and nature of the emergency.
The Quick Response Team will consist of three to four crew members trained to respond and deal with emergencies. In addition to this activity, the main team will go to prepare for any situation.
You see a picture of the person preparing for such an event.
Once the Quick Response Team has arrived at the location where the emergency occurred, they will try to extinguish the fire, give feedback to the central bridge and let them know the exact situation.
They will also close local fire doors and the release switch will close fire doors.
They will also check all the cabins and adjacent spaces here. You see the means of cabinets being checked by placing a card in the case lock and this enables people to understand that the space has been checked and verified that it is empty.
Over 90% of emergencies are dealt with by the Quick Response Team. This is a combination of the team it serves and the knowledge of knowing where the fire has occurred.
However, should the situation deteriorate, a crew alert will be given, and advise they should go to their emergency station.
For example, here, we have two guards on the main stairway ready to assist and point people in the right direction toward the assembly areas.
At the same time, the main fire party will head for the source of the fire, will continue the work that's been initiated from the quick response team and close fire doors in that area of the ship to complete and isolate the fire.
Here, we see members of the party, preparation for and we see the fire party in action here to contain the fire. At the same time, special assistance teams will be dispatched to all the cabins and public areas to assist any one with injuries or mobility.
They will help the passengers that need assistance until the emergency is over and they will have equipment. Until this time, there has been no general alarm.
The procedure has moved forward making sure that all the necessary elements for assistance and emergency are in place before the ship goes to a general alarm. This is an alert for the passenger.
There has been a check of the local area where the fire and now, a complete check of the ship. And passengers there make their way to the assembly station where they will await further instruction.
These are the systems in place. The procedure there varies between different operators but in the event of a real emergency, these are the trained individuals that will guarantee the safety of all passengers.
This is one of the reasons why ICCL believe the ships welcome the opportunity to continue working with the Access Board to assist in developing new guidelines. Thank you.