Upon deployment, each array is lowered to the ground. It then
unfolds, enabling emergency responders to board the cabins. It
travels upwards until it stops opposite five elevated floors
simultaneously, enabling 300 occupants to enter through specially
configured exit windows (150 people from 5 floors into each array).
Each array is then lowered to the ground and tenants exit as it
refolds. The system repeats this cycle, transporting responders up
and into the building and evacuating tenants as required.
Each array includes the rooftop devices - storing and deploying
mechanism, drive system, cabin array, independent power source;
command and control mechanisms; (re) configured windows on each
floor, as emergency exits (and boarding ramps); and wind
stabilization mechanism.
Two arrays on a building are able to evacuate some 2,000 people per
hour, the company says.
The department has the authority under the SAFETY Act to designate a
technology or service as a "Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology".
The SAFETY Act defines anti-terrorism technology very broadly as any
product, equipment, service or device, "designed, developed, modified
or procured for the specific purpose of preventing, detecting,
identifying or deterring acts of terrorism or limiting the harm such
acts might otherwise cause".
To be certified, products must work as intended, and be as safe as possible.
Under the act, suits against qualified technologies arising out of
terrorist acts cannot be brought in state courts, where some critics
of tort law argue that judges and juries are too favorable to
plaintiffs and too generous with awards.
Instead anyone wanting to sue the makers or sellers of such products
would have to use the federal courts.
In addition, the act eliminates punitive damages - designed to punish
guilty defendants - from such cases and expands the so-called
"government contractor defense" to anyone making or selling
anti-terror equipment, even if their customers are all in the private
sector.
The Escape Rescue System is a building-wide solution for safe,
external evacuation of building tenants and quick transporting of
rescue personnel to elevated floors. The building-wide system is
composed of (at least) two devices; each is an array of five
collapsible cabins. The system is permanently stored on the roof in a
folded position.