Posted on 11/18/2018 1:27:51 AM PST by BenLurkin
It took nearly three hours to rescue six people stuck in an elevator in Chicago’s fourth-tallest building early Friday.
A broken hoist rope caused the express elevator to malfunction while guests who had just left the Signature Room on the 95th floor rode down toward the lobby. The elevator and two others have since been closed to the public while repairs are made and investigators figure out what happened.
When rescuers scrambled to find the stuck elevator early Friday morning, there were no openings between floors because of the building’s blind-shaft style layout. The rescue crew had to hammer out a concrete wall in the garage area of the 11th floor. Today, cables were dangling next to the cracked door where the people trapped in the elevator were pulled to safety.
“It was a precarious situation where we had the cable break on top of the elevator (and) we couldn’t do an elevator-to-elevator rescue we had to breach a wall,” said Chicago Battalion Fire Chief Patrick Maloney.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicago.cbslocal.com ...
As King George allegedly said:
“Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance.”
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/king_george_v_189280
I recall that I used to take the elevator at Logan Airport’s international arrivals regularly, once every two weeks. There were two elevators side by side, and both of them had inspection certificates displayed that were about a year out of date. Usually the elevators were not crowded, but one day one was especially packed. I commented, to no one in particular, “Am I the only one who noticed that the inspect certificate is a year out of date?”
Next time I got on, about two weeks later, in place of the inspection certificate was a notification, “For inspection certificate please visit...” and it identified an office. which probably would only respond to official inquiries.
In this case, it’s likely that inspections were pencil whipped or simply ignored entirely.
Safety inspections cannot anticipate, they help prevent, but failures will still occur.
There will be an investigation, and the first part of the investigation will ensure that the safety inspections were carried out correctly. If the safety inspections were by the letter of the law, and checked everything that was supposed to be checked then the safety inspection was done properly.
My thought as well. I thought safety brakes were supposed to pin the elevator car to the shaft as soon as there was no tension of the cable. How is that tested in service?
The reliability of an unmaintained system exponentially approaches zero with time.
Went to the bar on the 95th floor with my daughter a few years back. In my business you go into all of the spaces in building the general public is restricted from. The tales I can tell. Asbestos insulation falling off surge tanks next to the main air handler units and the like.
“...broken hoist rope ...”
They’re using rope instead of steel cables? Am I reading this wrong?
It is called wire rope but sometimes just rope.
“It was fine when I looked at it”
No doubt that the guy is taking a chance. But a guy that does something like this has been on the job for a few years and has inspected hundreds of elevators and never found a problem. He also knows that all of these buildings have maintenance contracts for their elevators. The maintenance companies also do periodic inspections of the elevators and also do preventative maintenance.
The guy makes an educated guess that he is never going to get caught.
The elevator is one of the stupidest inventions ever produced by man. When it works it’s great. When it stops with people in it, it’s a steel jail cell.
Apparently some people can’t conceive of their brainchild failing. It does. Then it’s a really big job to extract the people in the damn thing.
Hancock doesn’t own the building, although they may well have invested in a real estate trust that does have an interest.
Looking at it, it appears that the ownership is more interesting that usual. One company owns the observation deck, another owns the residential; someone else owns the retail and restaurant; and finally another company owns the commercial and garage. Just sorting out who owns the elevator and cables in question might take some real work, digging through years of sales, loan, operating agreements and foreclosure documents.
As for inspectors, well, Chicago inspectors have earned a reputation of working for tips.
It happened to me once. It was like a system reboot. It went to the 13th floor of a 12 story building and went free-fall. It stopped at the 3rd floor.
Here in California, after doubling “annual inspection fees,” the state inspector didn't even actually show up this year. Instead he sent us a letter in which he “inferred” needed repairs that we had to have our repair service “correct” within a prescribed time period or face an exorbitant fine! So Chicago has nothing on Brown's clowns.
Gary Larson: "...Ernie watched in horror as one more elephant..."
I once worked in what used to be the warehouse for a woolen mill. Most of the mechanicals were original.
The freight elevators had barriers installed inside to prevent over-loading/crowding.
Though it never happened to me - I'd usually climb the two or three flights - the very small (more than three was crowding iirc - hey, it installed for a warehouse, not offices) passenger elevator would get stuck, and the transportees would have to jump in unison to get it moving.
Maybe it was the EXPRESS ELEVATOR.
I've noticed that they no longer put the 'inspection sticker/certificate' in the elevators. They have a sign that says "Inspection certificate on display in Building Manager's Office". Seems that they had problems with people stealing the certificate.
In the 'industry', steel cable is often referred to as 'wire rope'.
God I hate the media. First, the building isn’t owned by hancock anymore, it’s not even an,eeD Hancock, it’s 875 Michigan. Second they didn’t free fall 84 stories and then come to a stop, they would be piles of broken bones at the bottom of the car. Free fall from 840 would be 150 + mph. Those elevators normally go 20 mph which is plenty fast, my guess is the safety measures worked as planned it caused a big jolt because of normal speed and the people inside the elevator didn’t know what was happening
The view from the top is well worth going up there, surprising how very aqua Lake Michigan is in the summertime, it just glows. A 95 story climb would limit the appeal, though. Seems I recall banks of express elevators going to and coming from the higher floors, move fairly quickly, enough to give your stomach a little flip when it starts going down under normal circumstances.
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