The behaviour and evacuation experiences of WTC 9/11 evacuees with self-designated mobility impairments

The increasing accessibility of buildings to people with disabilities requires that buildings are also designed and managed to provide accessible means of escape for all. In so doing, it is important to understand the capabilities of building occupants with disabilities to evacuate and their interaction with others. This is particularly important in high-rise buildings where occupants' primary means of accessing upper floors, i.e. lifts, may not necessarily be the preferred route in a fire emergency. Until recently there has been little in-depth study of the evacuation of mixed ability populations in a large-scale emergency building evacuation. The evacuation of the World Trade Centre (WTC) on September 11, 2001 was one of the most significant evacuations of high-rise buildings in modern times. The UK High-rise Evacuation Evaluation Database (HEED) study aimed to capture the detailed and multifaceted behaviour and experiences of the evacuees in a relational database which would facilitate the answering of research questions relating to the evacuation of high-rise buildings, including questions relating to the evacuation of people with disabilities. The information stored in the HEED comprises pre-interview questionnaires, interview transcripts and coded time, location and experience data on 271 persons who evacuated the World Trade Centre on 9/11. This paper focuses on the behaviour and experiences of six evacuees of Towers 1 and 2, who declared a mobility impairment in their pre-interview questionnaire. The individuals' physical and medical profiles, together with their fire safety awareness profiles, as determined from the pre-interview questionnaire, free flow and semi-structured interviews are presented, together with details of their experiences as they evacuated the towers. Their need for assistance, formation of groups with their assistors or others, perception of risk and the difficulties or otherwise that they encountered are also considered. Issues with respect to a definition of disability for fire evacuation planning/design, sufficiency of escape route widths, group behaviour, nature/delivery of training programmes and emergency preparedness are discussed.