Developer undaunted by New York's rebuff of high-rise escape system

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Developer undaunted by New York's rebuff of high-rise escape system

By Alan Feuer
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

February 12, 2006

NEW YORK – Among the wilder notions floating around post-Sept. 11 New York is the high-rise evacuation device called Escape Rescue System.

Developed by a former Israeli general, it is half elevator, half escape pod – a strange, sophisticated device that allows a group of residents or workers trapped inside a building to be lowered down to safety in fire-resistant capsules that move, like a descending train, on a structure's outer shell.

Imagine a multicabined elevator made of fabric and stored, folded like an accordion, atop a building's roof. When an alarm is sounded, the fabric is dropped down the building's side, where it gradually uncoils. There are now five capsules, strung out in a train and connected by 2-inch metal cables to a motor on the roof. As the capsules descend, escaping tenants climb out from their windows and into the machine and are lowered to the street.

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Among the arguments Shimshoni put forth was that his machine can travel up, then down, a 40-story high-rise in about eight minutes. One of his machines can hold as many as 150 people, and if two are installed, as he recommends, 300 people can be lowered to safety in less than 10 minutes.

But the city told him no.

In a letter to Shimshoni dated Feb. 6, Joseph F. Bruno, the commissioner of the city's Office of Emergency Management, said that while Escape Rescue System “does seem, in theory, to present an alternate means of egress,” there were nonetheless concerns. First among them, Bruno wrote, was who would operate it, the Fire Department or civilians at the site?.. Shimshoni said he has not given up on trying to convince officials in the city. “We plan to continue the process in New York,” he said. “We don't expect this to be the final word.”


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