The recommendations are the outcome of a $16 million investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, destruction of Manhattan’s World Trade Center.
NFPA’s High-Rise Building Safety Advisory Committee crafted preliminary comments on NIST’s draft final report, released June 23. The comments, to be submitted to NIST by Aug. 4, are the first to be released by industry groups studying the recommendations.
Members of the 10-person committee agreed it is tough to argue with NIST’s "feel-good" recommendations, such as "improving" fireproofing, "preventing" progressive collapse or providing for timely evacuation of occupants. But they registered concerns with the report’s purposeful lack of specificity. Some are troubled that NIST’s call for changes is based on 110-story buildings designed 40 years ago, rather than on needs assessments and probabilistic studies of a larger building population.
For more information, go to www.nfpa.org.
