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The Grays on Pennsylvania is a 5-story, light-weight wood-frame (here’s a picture from the construction) apartment building. The ground floor is a combination of a market/retail space and apartments; floors 2-5 are apartments only. Beneath the building you’ll find two levels of parking, which are accessible from the Delta side of the building (right next to a loading dock for the retail space). From an overhead view, the building resembles a squared-off “U” shape, with each arm of the U terminating in a stairwell.

Upon initial entry (from the alpha/address side from Pennsylvania Avenue), you’ll approach an open octagonal space just past the alarm panel on your left side. From each side of this waiting area, you’ll find the leasing office, weight room, mail room, a bathroom, the elevator core, and a hallway leading to the ground floor apartments.

There are two elevators, which travel from both parking levels all the way to Floor 5 on electronic card access—a leasing office representative said they’d look into getting a card to the nearby companies. There are six apartments on the ground floor and 28 apartments on each of the upper floors, for a total of 118 units. Each of the upper floors are identically laid out; when exiting the elevators, apartments 01-07 are on the right and apartments 08-28 are on the left. Each unit has a full set of appliances (W/D, dishwasher, fridge, stove, etc.)

The two stairwells in the building, marked “A” and “B,” both reach from the lower parking deck all the way to the fifth floor. They are both standpiped on every level, and both offer access to the Charlie side via metal access doors. However, Stairwell B is the only one accessible from the Lobby. The hallway that leads to the six ground-floor units terminates in Stair B, offering immediate access to the rear of the building. Stairwell A is accessed from either the parking garage or the Charlie side.

The center of the “U” is a garden courtyard. After entering a locked gate (located midway between the two rear stairwell doors) and walking through the courtyard, you’ll encounter a door that leads to a a ground-floor maintenance hallway. Within this hallway, you’ll find a small electrical room, a back entrance to the market space, and access to the loading dock/trash area mentioned earlier. The two parking decks are identically laid out underground; one is for tenants, and the other is for patrons of the Yes! Market when it opens in late August. On the lower level—right next to the Stair A access door—you’ll find the main electrical room(s) for the entire building.

Thoughts: As far as laying out, the building is very accessible to hydrants. For first-due, there’s a hydrant located in front of the building. Second-due has a hydrant at Nicholson and Prout, a hydrant on L’Enfant Square directly in front of the car wash, and  back up at Nicholson and Minnesota if those are both OOS for whatever reason. Thinking about a box alarm, it seems like second-due pretty much has the run of the building. If you have an apartment number, then you know which of the rear doors would be wisest to enter. Example: You’re second due, approaching the building. You have fire reported in apartment 424. You’ll know that if you are facing the rear, you’ll find apartments 08-28 are closest to Stair A (on your left as you face the rear of the building). The FDC is near the A-D corner on the Alpha side; instead of running all the way around, or relying on first-due to supply water, the wagon driver could save time by supplying the Stair A standpipe himself via the parking garage/loading dock access while the crew makes entry with racks (it’s only a couple steps away from the C-D corner). So although the Alpha access is limited to the lobby, elevators, and one stairwell, the Charlie side can get you to anywhere in the building with what seems like the least amount of travel.

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Thoughts? This is the first one of these I’ve actually written up, so I’m sure I’m missing a whole bunch of stuff. Help me out, and let me know what else I should be looking for!

My hastily scribbled notes while walking.

]]> http://raisingladders.com/2010/08/building-walkthroughs-how-thorough-are-yours/feed/ 2 http://raisingladders.com/2010/07/the-scba-revolution/ http://raisingladders.com/2010/07/the-scba-revolution/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:15:50 +0000 raisingladders http://raisingladders.com/?p=674 Thirty pounds. That’s a well-packed office bag, complete with laptop, paperwork, power supplies, etc. It’s a couple of grocery bags, gathered in a bundle to save a last trip from the car to the kitchen. Most people wouldn’t think twice about carrying thirty pounds of anything more than a few steps from the Metro to the office, or from Best Buy to the car. In truth, it’s not that much weight, for short periods of time. But try carrying it on your back while you run, crawl, crouch, climb, or even just take a bone-jarring step down from an elevated vehicle cab with more weight than your body was built to be spry with. However, regardless of the complaints or the conditions, firefighters do this several times each day; and there’s no shortage of members who will tell you the toll it can take on their bodies. The extended use of the Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) currently utilized by departments all over the world doesn’t seem to lead to friendly outcomes for firefighters’ knees or backs—two problem areas that plague many within the brotherhood, both past and present.

Future generations—perhaps even our own, within the next few years—may soon be forced to worry about something else. Vulcore Industrial, based out of Fort Wayne, IN, has been developing what they call the “Flat Pack.” With this new design, they’re setting themselves up to revolutionize the way firefighters carry their most essential tool: breathing air. Current systems are based around a metal cylinder with a carbon fiber over-wrap; at 7+ inches in diameter, the added bulk on top of already shoulder-widening gear can make confined or entangling spaces almost impossible to navigate. Accordingly, a significant portion of fire academy instruction is related to maneuvering with the SCBA; at times, areas can get so narrow that one must resort to removing a shoulder strap and swinging the system around to the side of the now “thinner” firefighter.

At a diameter of 2.75″ each, the multi-cylinder system provides firefighters with no more bulk than a mostly empty school backpack. The new system—based off of CEO Stan Sanders’s patented design and a material called Hytrel—is molded into the thin bottles and then wrapped with Aramid and carbon fiber. According to the manufacturer’s specifications, the first “808 model” weighs up to 30% less than current systems, putting the prototype at a hair over 20 lbs. The “Cobra” model is advertised as 30% lighter than the 808. Thus, the potential exists for a breathing apparatus with the same amount of air/breathing time; but at 14 lbs, it’s over 50% lighter than what the fire service is using now. Vulcore Industrial was unavailable for comment, although their full set of Frequently Asked Questions is available here.

Images © Vulcore Industrial, LLC

In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security offered a 15-month, $2.7 million grant to the IAFF for the purposes of equipment research; and although the technology and initial prototypes were born from Vulcore, they just didn’t have the manufacturing power to mass-produce their product. Mine Safety Appliances, more commonly known throughout the fire service as MSA, has been assigned the daunting task of making Vulcore’s dream an assembly-line reality. The grant money will additionally be used for field testing and fulfilling government/NFPA certification requirements. An advisory committee working with the IAFF and International Personal Protection, Inc. has recommended a 45-minute service-rated system for the initial wave, although Vulcore states that they have the ability to produce 30- and 60-minute systems for different applications.

According to the May/June 2010 issue of International Fire Fighter, “Several firefighters from the Washington, D.C. area, conducted rigorous field tests to determine how a new, lighter, and lower-profile system would compare to the traditional SCBA… [the] series of functional tests, including timing, donning and doffing, roof operations, ladder escapes, crawling through tight spaces and fire ground survival skills” appeared to bode well for the system’s future in emergency services. Initial reactions are overwhelmingly positive, due to the light weight and increased maneuverability:

Video © Bobby Halton, Editor-in-Chief of Fire Engineering Magazine.

Additionally, videos posted on Vulcore’s own website show how the Flat Pack simplifies many of the entanglement hazards present inside dangerous environments:

The IAFF is expecting commercial production of the Flat Pack within the next year, marking a new introduction to an application that hasn’t changed since the first firefighting breathing apparatus was developed almost forty years ago.

With an uneasy creak, the spools began to move.

The chains could be heard pinging as they tightened and eventually held fast—little by little, the heavy wrecker began to lift the mammoth monolith of masonry that lay before us in a jungle of weathered stone and twisted rebar.

Yes, it’s drill time again; however, instead of going down into a trench, we’re going up in the air. E15′s collapse drill focused on shoring up ceilings, breaching concrete, and using our behemoth of a heavy rescue crane/wrecker to elevate the chunks of concrete that are piled haphazardly behind the Training Academy.

I have not yet attended the Collapse Rescue class that is afforded members of my firehouse; however, I have always found the physics principles that are inherent in technical rescue fascinating.

That’s right. I’m a classical physics and engineering mechanics dork at heart. Reading about formulas put together by the Army Corps of Engineers is one thing, but applying them in a real-world situation and seeing the results happen in front of you is entirely another.

Today was certainly no exception to my eager thirst for geeky science stuff; pictures, as always, can be clicked for a larger size.

Our concrete jungle, complete with… all sorts of junk.

The big bad boy wrecker. The boom itself is rated for 60 tons, and each of the two cable spools is rated for 16,400 lbs.

Rigging our strangely-shaped concrete tube of choice.

The Captain looks on…

Success! Yes, this is what I did at work today. I love my job.

One of the unique things about being assigned to Engine 15 is the occasional need to support Rescue Squad 3 in their technical area of expertise: trench and collapse rescue. We’re expected to know more than the average bear about the various tools and concepts within the scope of these topics, and to be able to assist the squad guys with various aspects of each while on the scene of an actual incident.

Sure enough, I found myself back at the Training Academy on a dreary mid-week morning, slogging through the mud and dragging various lengths of lumber around.

It’s an entirely new set of skills (and a language that goes along with it, to boot) that I have yet to learn. Although from what I saw during this drill, I think it’d be something I would enjoy—hell, I’ve always loved building things, so combine that with some ropes, a bit of math, and a whole boatload of physics? I’d be a happy guy.

(Haha, you’ll have to forgive the weird vignetting on some of the photographs. I’m using a digital camera from 2004—which makes it electronically ancient—and the shutter leaves over the lens get stuck sometimes. I think it’s kinda cool, actually.)

I present to you: Super Sexy CPR (also coming in June, Super Sexy Abdominal Thrusts! Main link here, slightly NSFW). If they could have made a year-long paramedic course as riveting as the following video, I’m certain I would have entered academia to study this sort of thing instead of being a street-level provider.

Maybe EMS isn’t so bad, after all.

/RL

Click on the photos below for the larger, more-readable version!

Thank you to the entire G.E.R.M.S administrative and training staff, with a special thank-you to Brendan Maggiore (VP of Operations), without whom this endeavor would never have come together. If anyone would like to see additional pictures from that day, all of them are available in this gallery on Raising Ladders Photography.

Keep up the great work, G.E.R.M.S.!

/RL

P.S. – an interesting bit of lore: on a shelf above the staff mailboxes, there is an old frame holding a conundrum of a photograph. It is, quite clearly, a glamour shot of actor Danny Glover. However, upon closer inspection, it says “To Germs, continue your great work. Danny Glover.” The strangest part? Nobody has any idea how it ended up there. Despite the photo’s prominent location for “quite some time now” (i.e. longer than anyone whom I asked remembers), there are no records, memories, or even legends of its origin. One G.E.R.M.S. member took it upon himself to look back more than a decade into the service’s employment records, interviewing and calling prior staffers about the photo—nevertheless, the search proved once again fruitless.

Any ideas?

Frustrated, I looked down at my paper. There were lots of street names, copied from the chalkboard—just no descriptions of how to get there, which was the purpose of the whole exercise.

It will come in due time, I suppose. I’ve been trying to learn the area as best I can without formally receiving any maps or running routes; it’s been mostly based off of talking with the wagon driver and the other guys on the back step with me. We’re all supposed to know our first-due area like the backs of our hands, and now that I passed my seventh-month test last tour, I’ll be receiving a list of common addresses to tackle—not to mention major buildings, abnormal addresses, hydrant locations, short streets, and a plethora of other data that we need to know.

I remember when I was sixteen and volunteering as an EMT, I had a map of our first-due area that I had drawn my self, and I used to drive around the area on the weekends to get a feel for it. I may have to do this again; granted, the area I’m supposed to know is much larger now, but I believe the process is the same.

Just add it to the pile of stuff to study; a fellow probationer told me that your eighth-month test is the hardest, because it’s more of those damned questions on top of trying to turn your head into a mapbook.

Either way, it’s just another step. As one of the more senior technicians told me last tour:

“One day, you’re going to be here at night, sleeping. And then the bells are going to go off. And as you wake up, you’ll hear the address… and a map is just going to pop right into your head. You’ll know exactly how to get there… and by the time you fully wake up, you’ll realize that you’re sitting outside of that very house with the parking brake on.”

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Note: Similar to “The Sitting Room,” “10am” will be reserved as a header title for anything related to drills and training—the name stems from the fact that by Department rules, every shift is to train on something at 10am each day (with certain exceptions, but the general idea holds true).