9/11: a sea change in skyscraper safety?

I was watching a TV program about the collapse of the World Trade Center, and one of the analysts said something to the effect that prior to the collapse, it was thought that total evacuation of a skyscraper would not be necessary in the event of an emergency. (why they ever thought that is beyond me.) now, that assumption is now obviously not true.

this reminds me of the changes that the sinking of the Titanic forced the maritime industry to make. prior to the sinking, lifeboats were to be used just to ferry passengers from a sinking ship to another ship, instead of using them as we think of lifeboats today.

my point being, what sort of changes can be made to current and future skyscrapers to improve the evacuation of people? is there any way to get people out of a 110+ plus building in the event of an attack or an emergency?

Parachutes for those on the top floors! They need some sort of safe fire escapes, seriously.

Originally posted by jrod
Parachutes for those on the top floors! They need some sort of safe fire escapes, seriously.

running down 110 flights of stairs isn't an easy task if you're by yourself under normal circumstances, let alone with a mob under "we're all gonna die"-panic type circumstances.

Might not be to feasible....but some type of parachute system might not be a bad idea if it could be made to work. Dont really see any other way to evacute from tall buildings...especially in any type of 9/11 situation.

I was suprised that there were not helicopters pulling people off the roof of the WTC. Parachutes would give people a chance, when they had the documentary on tv it was awful how you could hear the body's land. If I ever work in a skyscraper im gonna keep my own parachute and all my co-workers will think im skittzo.