Originally Posted by
vincentharris
So as I understand it NONE of the emergency lights (the ones that kick on when power dies that run on batteries) turned on. I would consider that a huge fire code violation (which one asks who was signing off on their fire codes being met?)
If the emergency lights were not turning on, then I would wonder was the fire suppression system working or was it AFD that got down to the fire in the substation and put it out quick enough. With smoke on C & D concourses why didnt the smoke detectors go off?
Emergency lights often work off of the main circuits with a local battery (as this is the most reliable for a highly distributed system - it fully isolates the system - although clearly in this case it wasn't sufficient since people hung around for 10 hours (which to me was the big screw up here).
As I said though, if my understanding is incorrect and life safety systems DID fail - and the airport did not evacuate when this was recognized - than that is a huge failure and heads should indeed roll for that.