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Sharon O'connor on refuge floors

From CTBUH 2012 Shanghai Congress - O'Connor, "Considerations for Refuge Areas in Tall Buildings" · · CTBUH

“People kind of ignore the Refuge floors and they don't really use them. That is feedback I am getting from people on our fire safety working group.”

Sharon O'connor
Sharon O'connor
Vice President of Legal Services, CORVEL CORP
Controversial refuge floorshuman behaviorfire safety

On , Sharon O'connor, Vice President of Legal Services at CORVEL CORP, spoke about refuge floors during CTBUH 2012 Shanghai Congress - O'Connor, "Considerations for Refuge Areas in Tall Buildings" on CTBUH.

CTBUH 2012 Shanghai Congress - O'Connor, "Considerations for Refuge Areas in Tall Buildings"
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CTBUH 2012 Shanghai Congress - O'Connor, "Considerations for Refuge Areas in Tall Buildings"
CTBUH
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September 21, 2012. Shanghai, China. Within the last two decades, concentrating all or many occupants from many floors of a tall ...
Sharon O'connor

About Sharon O'connor

Vice President of Legal Services · CORVEL CORP

Sharon O'Connor, Vice President of Legal Services at Corvel, presented at the 2012 CTBUH Shanghai Congress on considerations for refuge areas in tall buildings. She discussed the financial and sustainability impacts of refuge floors, noting costs such as additional construction time, cleaning, HVAC, loss of efficiency, and impacts on leasing plans. O'Connor suggested that in fully sprinklered buildings, most floors could serve as refuge space, and advocated for redirecting cost savings from not building refuge floors toward sprinkler system reliability, testing, and maintenance. She described sprinklers as an "on-demand firefighter" and emphasized the need for regular maintenance to ensure reliability. O'Connor also raised concerns about human behavior in fires, including potential overcrowding on refuge floors and the risk of moving occupants to a refuge floor directly above a fire. She reported feedback from her fire safety working group that people often ignore refuge floors and do not use them. Additionally, she characterized helicopter evacuation from rooftops as a "very high-risk strategy," citing obstacles such as thick smoke, flight safety, weather, turbulence, and the risk of helicopter crashes in urban settings.

Profile compiled from Sharon O'connor's verified public interviews and appearances. See all quotes & transcripts →

More from this interview
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“As we go through my presentation and I talk about refuges, think about the impact of Refuge areas, particularly Refuge floors, on the financial model for these buildings and the su…”
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“One of the big things we see, and again this goes back to the financial models for tall buildings, is what are the costs associated with these Refuge floors? There's additional con…”
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“One of the concerns I have is how are all these people being trained and thinking in the evacuation process? Are they being told to go to the Refuge floor? Is it really fair to mov…”
 00:26:48,000 --> 00:29:14,000
“Helicopter evacuation from rooftops is a very high-risk strategy. The Shanghai fire showed that helicopters were prevented by thick smoke from approaching the building. We also hav…”
 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:36,000
“We need to pay very particular attention to the sprinkler systems we put in our buildings and maintain and test them on a regular basis to ensure that they are reliable.”
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“If you have a fully sprinkler building, most if not all floors can serve as Refuge space. And also, if you're going to institute Refuge floors in buildings, can we really, in terms…”
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