BurJurman mall was evacuated yesterday afternoon when acrid smoke filled the luxury shopping mall. The smoke, which came from one of the restaurants, filled all 3 shopping floors of the mall and filtered down to the basement parking. The fire brigade was on the scene quickly and dealt with the fire. However, as expected, there was absolutely no organised direction to confused shoppers on where the exits were to leave the building. Don't tell me otherwise in your glossy press releases! Many shoppers and shop workers gathered in the foyer of the office tower which, in a major emergency and evacuation would be a nightmare as they'd be struggling to get into the office fire exits while the office workers were also using to evacuate from the 25 floors of the business tower. On this occasion there was only smoke, but if there'd been flames, panic would have started and it would have been a disaster. After 18 months the office tower management have still not held an organised tenant evacuation drill. The management hands out a pathetic photocopied book (one copy per tenant) that's supposed to be sufficient. After circling body parts in photos of disaster/accident cases as part of my job 'back in the day' at RT&P, I'm highly motivated to ensure that I'm not a casualty and that nobody I work with is either! So with the support of management, I convinced, ok I nagged, everyone in the firm into taking part in our own evacuation drills. At the first evacuation drill we found the fire exit door to the street had been chained shut. The response was "But Madame don't worry, the door is always open between 10 - 5." Well that's good isn't it because everyone knows that fires keep regular hours. Until February this year the company I work for in BJ Tower seemed to be alone in having any sort of structured and practiced evacuation plan. I'm happy to say that now the Aus Consulate and AusTrade are joining us in our 3 monthly jaunts down the fire stairs. Its not perfect by the standards we're used to in NZ/Aus/US/UK but if it gives us a fighting chance in a real emergency, its well worth doing.
There are photos here.
