West Loop evacuation drill – did you know about it?
The Tribune‘s top story is tomorrow’s West Loop evacuation drill, complete with a graphic to show what areas will be affected. The Sun Times has the story a bit further down, but still has some information. The CTA has the goods on what bus routes will be affected. And the City website (with all its paragraph-long links)? They have a general press release on emergency preparedness in the month of September, and a form to participate in the drill. No top story, no map, no real information at all. Color me crazy (you won’t be the first), but I think “emergency preparedness” should include letting Chicagoans know about what’s going on.
Is the West Loop bit just the evacution zone or are some of the buildings in the West Loop gonna be evacuated? I know it’s supposed to be “a drill” but shouldn’t we have some idea what’s going to happen tomorrow? (btw I don’t expect you to tell me, I just haven’t been able to find that information in the newspaper or heard it anywhere else.)
I can just picture a tourist being really confused by all the sirens, people flooding out of buildings, etc and thinking it’s all “War of the Worlds”.
apparently some buildings have been asked to evacuate and others haven’t- I got an email from the facilities manager for my building saying we aren’t evacuating (I guess when The End comes, we won’t be prepared, AAAIIIEEE!)
Maybe the lack of information is part of their brilliant plan to get a good drill? After all, when/if disaster strikes, there won’t be an article about it in the Trib a few days before. Of course, I’m giving them *way* too much credit here. :)
“Emergency Preparedness?” Only FOUR buildings are being evacuated, the tenants are being allowed to use the elevators and are being “ushered” to a “refugee ceter” almost five blocks away and participation is VOLUNTARY.
That’s not an emergency preparedness drill, that’s just plain nonsense!
The buildings effected are in a cluster around the Board of Trade and the drill is happening at about 4PM tomorrow. Most of those buildings are populated by sales and trading operations which are NOT going to want to lose ANY time out of their selling cycle, esepcially in the downswing side of the week. They have to close after bell trades and resolve the day to make sure that they have made the money they claim that they have.
For this to be effective, this drill should be mandatory, if nothing else.
I’m willing to bet that the City and the Department of Homeland Security will get less than 10% total cooperation from the people IN those buildings. When it’s a choice between making a bunch of sales that could make or break your month or participating in a glorified fire drill, guess where the traders and sales people are going to come down?
Hint: it’s NOT going to be on the side of the fire drill. These folks think with their wallets!
Of course, if the fire alarm goes off and no one in the building knows that it IS a drill, then some people are going to get hurt in the rush to get out of the buildings – and then the lawyers will have a field day with the personal injury claims and maybe even a wrongful death suit or two…
Like I’ve always said: Common sense ain’t! If it was, we’d see a LOT MORE OF IT! (Darrow’s First Law)
Lee Darrow, C.H.
Chicago, IL
My building is one of the lucky ones selected.
I’ll be photobloging the site on flickr
Well, I think the point is that this drill is more for the emergency crews than it is for the people in the offices. Sure, if you’re in one of those buildings and you want to participate, You’ll probably have a better idea of what to expect in case something goes wrong, but I don’t think that the powers that be are really all that worried about whether or not the brokers are going to leave or not. My understanding is that the main thrust of this is to get the emergency services prepared.
It was a great 1/5 mile walk down Monroe.
I’ve got some picture up on flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcbeatty/sets/72157594273457584/