Toronto blackout forces some to climb 50 stories in the dark

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...l/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090421.whydro21art2259

"...The lights went out at several condos and an adjoining gymnasium near the Rogers Centre, some of them part of the massive Concord CityPlace development projects, shortly after 6 p.m. on Saturday. The blackout, which lasted almost 24 hours in some buildings, forced some residents to spend the night in hotels or with family.

While some backup lights immediately switched on at the gym and other areas, there were none at all for several hours in at least one of the condo buildings.

With elevators shut down, residents in one tower climbed up to 50 stories in a pitch black emergency stairwell to get home, the only light coming from their cellphones and MP3 players. Because most of the emergency stairwell doors are locked - with the exception of the ground floor and about 10 cross-over floors - residents eventually began jamming junk mail into the locks to keep the doors wedged open for others...."

I'm sure glad I don't live in TO anymore and that I'm a dedicated flashaholic. I can't remember the last time I used an elevator.

Man, and I thought it was annoying having to climb the four flights of stairs in the stairwell at work (lift's been dead for a month now)!

PhotonBoy said:

The blackout, which lasted almost 24 hours in some buildings, forced some residents to spend the night in hotels or with family.

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I know what the writer's trying to say, but... people stay with their families?!? I never would've guessed!:thinking:

I had to climb 7 floors in the dark during the big blackout of 2003. It was no fun. Getting up the stairs was not too bad once I found the railing. The hard part was keeping track of which floor I was on.
I started to look for a better flashlight than my dead Solitaire and Google brought me to CPF.

LEDninja said:

I started to look for a better flashlight than my dead Solitaire and Google brought me to CPF.

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A blown bulb in my 2xAA Maglite led me to CPF too. Experiences like these force people to say: "Heck, I'm not going to go through THIS again!!"

That stinks that not ONE person had a flashlight. Even a Mag Solitaire would have helped, but not by much.I first got hooked on flashlights after I was stuck in the back of Lowe's when the power went out. Not fun using a cell phone and crawling on your hands and knees so you don't trip. Took me 10 minutes to go 50 feet to the exit...:candle:

I now carry a Preon 2 AAA cell light in my shirt pocket when I leave home. It's no harder to carry than a pen. I carry a satchel to work and it's equipped with 2 lights. It also contains a multi-tool for emergency repairs.

50 stories... holy cow.

That's an awfully long way to climb. I think the most stairs I've ever gone up was to the 15th or 18th floor at a beach condo, and that was tiring enough!

After 9/11 especially, there's NO WAY I'd want to live or work that high up in a tower. Just think about a building-full of panicked people trying to hoof it down 50 floors of stairs in a fire... yikes.

PhotonBoy said:

A blown bulb in my 2xAA Maglite led me to CPF too. Experiences like these force people to say: "Heck, I'm not going to go through THIS again!!"

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With elevators shut down, residents in one tower climbed up to 50 stories in a pitch black emergency stairwell to get home

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I wonder if any of those might be future CPFers lovecpf :welcome: ........

curiousone1 said:

I wonder if any of those might be future CPFers lovecpf :welcome: ........

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Hopefully, but probably not. Most will likely pick up a two pack of mag's at te local store, and promptly for get about them... Then, the next time it happens, they'll realize they were idiots for leaving the lights in the house, not taking it with them...

Hopefully a few find their way here, and if they do, a hearty :welcome: from all of us!

Imagine climbing 50 floors to get back to where your kid is stuck at home alone and then finding that you can't get in because some moron decided to lock the stairwell doors. Or trying to escape from a burning building when you find that one stairwell is blocked before you get to the bottom.

You need to remember to take a fire axe with you.

We really need to make it illegal to lock the stairwell doors or otherwise make it impossible to get in when the elevators are out. Or to simply use the stairs instead of the elevators.

And remember to block the doors open if you're ever in a building with stairwell doors that lock and the power goes out.

The funny thing is if you have a flashlight with you in a situation like that, people will ask you "why do you have a flashlight?" :shrug:

Great thread.

How did i miss this, a year ago ?

:candle:
_

In relation to official safety reviews, but on the side, I've tried to convince various people who work in office towers that in the event of a fire or blackout the emergency stair lighting in their buildings might not come on, and so it's a good idea for at least the emergency officers to keep at least a small flash at their desks. If I get through at all, they inquire and are assured that there is emergency lighting that HAS to work, so they forget about it. Not sure how that works mentally, but the possibility of 50 to 400 people heading down a multi-storey, pitch-black stairwell all at once is not my idea of good times.