April 10, 2006—The high-rise safety committee of the National Fire Protection Association, formed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, went back to fundamentals at its fourth meeting by deciding that model codes should not include specific requirements for terrorism resistance, according to an article in Engineer News-Record. The advisory group also will suggest to NFPA that its building and life safety codes state that they do not address attacks, and that the codes offer guidance to designers interested in providing terrorism resistance in buildings.
Of the 10 members at the meeting, there was one dissenter on the issue. “It is unconscionable to take the simplistic position of not including terrorism” in codes, said Jake Pauls, a building safety consultant from Silver Spring, Md., representing the American Public Health Association. “We can address terrorism resistance the way we address slip resistance,” with requirements that are imperfect but better than nothing, he added.
Jon D. Magnusson, representing the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations and chairman of Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Seattle, strongly disagreed. “Promising terrorism resistance while only considering the smallest of attacks is false advertising,” he said.
To read the article, access the Web site of the Engineering News-Record.
