| The
Commerce Department’s
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today
announced that it has reached an agreement with the City
of New York (NYC) that will allow NIST to review additional
information related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center (WTC). That information includes
NYC 9-1-1 tapes and the transcripts of approximately 500
interviews of employees of the Fire Department of New York
(FDNY) who were involved in WTC emergency response activities.
The review of materials will take place at NYC offices.
A second agreement
enables NIST to collect its own first-person data from
New York City’s WTC first responders.
Data obtained
from the 9-1-1 tapes, the NYC interviews and the NIST interviews
will be used to study occupant behavior
and evacuation, and emergency response as part of the agency’s
federal building and fire safety investigation of the WTC
disaster. Under the National Construction Safety Team Act
(NCST), the NIST Director has taken action to protect the
privacy of the information it receives by the two agreements.
“These agreements mark an important step forward to
realizing the goal of this portion of our WTC investigation—improving
practices, standards and codes for evacuation and emergency
response in extreme events,” said NIST Director Arden
Bement Jr. “They bring us closer to achieving the desired
outcome for our overall WTC response plan: improvements in
the way people design, construct, maintain and use buildings,
especially high-rise buildings.” NIST reached the agreements
working with the NYC Law Department.
With the agreements
in place, NYC will provide NIST investigators with access
to the tapes and transcripts no later than Dec.
31, 2003. Some materials—including those dealing with
specific individuals’ identities, detailing the emotional
state or emotional reaction of a specific person, or having
involvement in any current criminal investigation or prosecution—will
be excluded.
NIST expects to begin its interviews of FDNY and New York
Police Department (NYPD) employees shortly. Working closely
with NYC, NIST will identify the interview candidates who
are most knowledgeable in the subject areas where information
is needed.
NIST will conduct two types of interviews with FDNY and
NYPD personnel: face-to-face and focus group. The National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also
known as the 9-11 Commission) will participate with NIST
in the interview process.
Among the areas for which the NIST-collected interview data
could facilitate improvements are:
- occupant
behavior and evacuation technologies and practices
for tall buildings;
- decision-making
and situation awareness (for both evacuees and first
responders);
- the
design of egress systems;
- the
role of floor wardens and fire safety directors;
- the
evacuation of people with disabilities;
- firefighting
technologies and practices for tall buildings;
- command,
control and communication systems for emergency response;
and
- the
content, timing and quality of emergency communications
(among occupants and authorities, within
and outside buildings, and for intra- and inter-group communications).
Under the National Construction Safety Team Act, signed
into law in October 2002, NIST is authorized to investigate
major building failures in the United States. The NIST investigations
will establish the likely technical causes of the building
failure and evaluate the technical aspects of emergency response
and evacuation procedures in the wake of such failures.
A comprehensive Web site on the NIST WTC investigation and
related work to improve the safety of buildings and their
occupants and first responders is at http://wtc.nist.gov. As a non-regulatory
agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s
Technology Administration, NIST develops and promotes measurement,
standards and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate
trade and improve the quality of life. For more information
on NIST, visit www.nist.gov.
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