Living in high rise apartment buildings is generally safe. Building codes, quality materials and modern design techniques allow high rise buildings to withstand quite a bit, whether it be a resident-caused emergency like a fire or a severe weather event. All that said, emergencies of many kinds can happen. Getting out of a standard single-family house in an emergency situation is pretty easy, with the exception of intense fires. In a high rise apartment building, an evacuation will be more involved and take a lot more time – getting down to ground level from the 25th floor takes a bit of effort. Although a total evacuation is rare, it is essential that we prepare for it now so we’re ready if one should ever occur. Let’s talk about what’s involved in evacuating a high rise apartment building and 5 readiness tips.
Resources & A Brief Disclaimer
If this is your first time to this website, welcome. We have lived in several high rises over the years and write from a perspective of experience first and foremost. Luckily, we’ve never needed to evacuate – but we’ve certainly thought about what it would involve.
We are not emergency responders or ‘experts’ in any emergency-related field – just two people who have a lot of experience living in high rises. In turn, we encourage you to check out these links from authorities on this topic for additional information.
- National Fire Protection Association FAQ About High Rises
- OSHA Emergency Evacuation of High Rise Building
- ASTM High Rise Evacuation
These links contain loads of helpful information, including what you should do if you cannot leave your apartment in an emergency.
5 Readiness Tips For Evacuating A High Rise Apartment Building
Assuming you are able to evacuate, here are five readiness tips for evacuating a high rise apartment building based on our knowledge and research over the years.
1. Understand Your Building
It’s so easy to get caught up in our daily routine. In a big enough building, it’s easy to never even walk to the other end of the hallway unless we go out of our way to do so.
Right from the beginning, it’s a good idea to walk around the building to know as much as you can about it. Here are some things that I recommend checking right away:
- Stairs: Where are they, how many are there and which one is closest to your apartment.
- Alarm System: Know where the intercom system and alarms are located.
- Exits: How many exits are there on the main level? Check out how many there are and where they are.
Knowing this information by heart puts you a big step in the right direction already.
2. Plan Your Exit Strategy
Now that you know where all the exits are, it’s time to know your strategy for physically evacuating if need be.
I recommend actually walking the route you’ll need to take. Starting at the staircase closest to your apartment, I recommend walking all the way down to where the physical exit actually is.
In my present building, the stairwells don’t exit into the lobby. They instead exit directly onto the street behind our building. Not a huge difference, but little things like that can throw wrenches into the gears during an emergency situation.
For added detail, you can do a walk through like this for every stairwell in your building.
The more you know, the better.
3. Know Which Essentials You Must Bring
First and foremost, time is of the essence when evacuating a high rise building – or any building for that matter. It’s important that you only bring with you the absolute essentials.
Unless the entire building has caught fire (unlikely with modern safeguards in place) or it’s at risk of collapse, you will regain access to your apartment once conditions stabilize.
Generally speaking, if something can be replaced and is non-essential – leave it.
Our list of essentials includes the following items, some of which are stored in the same drawer for quick access.
- Wallet: Contains ID, credit cards and cash for immediate expenses, such as food and an alternative place to stay.
- Phone: For the obvious reasons.
- Keys: Apartment, car, etc.
- Pets: We will carry our cat in whatever way possible – ideally her carrier bag.
- Laptop: If it’s small enough to fit in a backpack and not slow you down. Ours contains too many important documents to lose, but it’s small and light enough to justify.
- Appropriate Clothes: Not for a night on the town. I’m talking real shoes, pants, shirt and outerwear if needed.
- Medications/Medical Equipment: Bring whatever is required regularly or prescribed – over the counter medication can always be bought again.
This is my specific list for evacuating our building. Time is always of the essence! This list is also based around actually being able to evacuate – not with an active fire just outside our door. Check out the NFPA links above for that.
I highly recommend you put everything into a backpack before leaving, as it will leave both hands free to evacuate faster.
In a broader sense, it’s not a bad idea to keep a small go-bag with essential supplies in the event of an emergency, in which you can put some of the essential items above.
4. Avoid Elevators
Generally speaking, avoid elevators when evacuating a high rise. This is for a few reasons.
First of all, the fire department and other emergency responders may take control of them in order to move around as fast as possible. This leaves you taking the stairs anyways.
Secondly, elevators get extremely backed up when busy. The quantity, size and speed of the elevations in any given building are designed to handle only a fraction of the total building’s population at any given time.
You may wait for quite a while to actually get an elevator, which will no doubt be stopping at every floor on the way down.
Elevators also have weight limits. With many people in a panicked state, an elevator quickly becomes overloaded when too many people try to fit.
Generally speaking, plan on taking the stairs unless there’s no other option.
5. Stay Near & Listen To Emergency Responders
Once you get out of the building, I recommend going to where emergency responders are based. It’s usually right in front of the building, but it might be different for yours.
This allows you to get a feel for what’s happening, hear the latest information and know the next steps as early on as possible.
Always Be Prepared, But We Hope You Never Need To Evacuate!
As the Art of War famously states, “every battle is won or lost before it’s ever fought.” Knowing what evacuating a high rise apartment building entails is important, but we truly hope you never have to use it! I hope this information is helpful.
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