Incident Report

 

Subject:    NIST - Building Standards & Evacuation Studies
Date of Email:    Thu 14/10/2004

Report Detail:


Buildings, bridges, and other man-made structures are not supposed to fail. But, sometimes they do, and for different reasons: fire, earthquakes, high winds, errors in design and construction, flaws in materials or workmanship, and even terrorist attacks.
Under the National Construction Safety Team Act (NCST) , signed into law in October 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is authorized to investigate major building failures in the United States. The NIST investigations will establish the likely technical causes of the building failure and evaluate the technical aspects of emergency response and evacuation procedures in the wake of such failures. The goal is to recommend improvements to the way in which buildings are designed, constructed, maintained and used.

NIST currently is conducting two major construction safety investigations: a building and fire safety investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Centre fire and building collapses; and the Feb. 20, 2003, fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I. The NCST Advisory Committee provides advice to NIST on its investigations.

Some major investigations include the building and fire safety investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center fire and building collapses, and the investigation of the fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I. on February 20, 2003. The NCST Advisory Committee provides advice to NIST on its investigations.

Note: Some of the information presented here is in PDF format.
Click here to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The following NIST site provides a whole host of new PDF downloads, presentation packages and video providing some valuable background and investigative work:
NIST Construction Safety Investigation

Background on the National Construction Safety Team Act

World Trade Center Investigation

Rhode Island Nightclub Fire Investigation