Security Sales & Integration February 2022 - 42

Special Report
LIFE-SAFETY
LESSONS
Learned From
Condo Collapse
From the rumble
of last year's
Surfside (Fla.)
tower tragedy that
killed 98 people
are pivotal best
practices for which
alarm installation
and monitoring
providers must
remain acutely
aware. The event
underscores the
value of properly
deployed and
maintained
emergency
notification
systems.
By Jeffrey D.
Zwirn
42
N
early 100 people were tragically
killed, from elderly couples
to young children,
after
the Champlain Towers South
12-story oceanfront tower condominium partially
collapsed in the Miami, Fla., suburb of
Surfside before dawn on June 24, 2021. As one
of last year's highest profile stories, the immediate
aftermath and ongoing coverage of this
disaster played out before millions of horrified
television and online news viewers.
Prior to the catastrophe, Champlain Towers
had contracted with an alarm contractor that
replaced the existing building fire alarm system
with a new voice evacuation fire alarm system.
Among other things, it included common-area
smoke detectors, manual pull stations, voice
evacuation speakers inside each of the apartments
and in the common areas throughout
the premises, and a remote alarm annunciator
located in proximity to the 24-hour guard station
in the lobby. It appears that a manual fire
alarm pull station in the lobby of the building
was activated before the collapse.
Against the foregoing backdrop, issues surrounding
liability have arisen due to myriad
reports that persons who were able to get out
of the building and escape before it collapsed
never heard the building fire alarm system activating
through its voice evacuation function.
Is a building fire alarm system designed and intended
to detect a building collapse? Of course
not, but that is not the focus of the forensic and
Security Sales & Integration FEBRUARY 2022
liability investigation in this matter.
In 2007, mass notification signaling (MNS)
was introduced into NFPA 72 as Annex material.
Then, MNS was incorporated into Chapter
24 of the 2010 Edition of NFPA 72, National
Fire Alarm and Signaling Code. The " Emergency
Communications Systems " chapter also includes
emergency voice alarm communication
systems (EVACS).
In the early morning hours of June 24, before
the partial building collapse, there are multiple
sources of information that confirm the security
guard who was working in the lobby at
Champlain Towers South was hearing strange
sounds coming from within the building. These
sounds were so concerning that the guard decided
to try and call each of the 129 apartments
to tell them to get out of the building.
This calamity serves as a jumping-off point
for a critical discussion of essential elements
for providing fire and life-safety systems that
every security dealer and central monitoring
station must always keep top of mind - and
execute upon.
What May Have Gone Awry
It is not axiomatic as to why the building fire
alarm system did not function as it was designed
and intended to do. Moreover, a determination
has not yet been made as to if the security guard
who was stationed in the lobby in the early morning
hours before the partial building collapse was
trained in how to use the system's onboard all-call
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Security Sales & Integration February 2022

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