NYC Highrises Fail to Create Post-9/11 Plans

Half of the city's high-rises have failed to create post-9/11 emergency-response plans, as required by law, FDNY brass said yesterday.

All large office buildings over 10 stories were supposed to submit terrorism- and disaster-preparedness plans - complete with blueprints, evacuation details and an internal response team - to the FDNY by November last year.

But as of yesterday, just 666 of the estimated 1,200 to 1,400 buildings had done so, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said during a City Council hearing.

"We have been really quite firm with the real-estate industry," Scoppetta said. "We have been pushing them pretty hard."

Even so, fire-safety experts warn that the skyscraper owners are moving too slowly and leaving tens of thousands of office workers at risk.

"There's a lackadaisical approach to safety six years after 9/11. God forbid anything happens, you have to have a plan in place," said Jack Murphy, vice chairman of the Fire Safety Directors of Greater New York and an expert on the commercial high-rise safety.

"You could say it's negligent."

Owners are required to submit the plans under upgraded city building-safety laws that were passed after 9/11.

Republished with permission of The New York Post.