Lifted79CJ7
08-31-2004, 03:03 AM
OK, First off let me just say that I work at a hotel.
Well, I was working late tonight and was getting ready to leave (around 12:45am) when the security guard called over the radio and said he was stuck in the elevator between the 10th and 11th floors. We laughed at him (Myself and the night auditor) and I decide to go get him out (our elevators have seen better days-just like any 20 year old elevator). I went over to retrieve the tool to open the elevator doors when he said to hurry, there was a smoke coming in. :!: Hmmm, that's not a good sign. So I start haulin' ass like a rabid K9 is after me. As I make it around the desk, the fire alarm goes off and I kick into overdrive. It was at about floor 8 that I realized I picked out the wrong week to start working out my legs. On the way up, I radioed the auditor (3rd shift front desk person) to call the chief engineer and tell to get his butt in, ASAP. Of course this is the week that I am acting General Manager. Fuuuuuuuuunnnn. :smile:
I made it to the 10th floor and open the door. Everything looks OK so far, but by now the security guard is yelling for me to come get him out, that he can't breathe or see. People are starting to look out the doors of their rooms andI yell at them to evacuate the hotel immediatly. I round the corner (the hotel is in the shape of an L) and see tons of white smoke. Oh crap. #-o
I made it to the elevator and am holding my breath due to the smoke. All I could think about was getting him out. The smoke was only from the waist up, so I took a deep breath and started breaking in. I opened the door and he was about 5 feet above the floor. He opened it up and all I could think about was a kid in college that did this (climb down) and slipped and fell down the shaft. I told him I was gonna go up one floor and get him out. I hauled it up one more flight and the 11th floor was worse (The stairwells have exhaust fans to clear the smoke out thank goodness.). I had trouble with the door and holding my breath was almost impossible after running up 11 flights of stairs. We got the door open and pulled him up. He was OK, but he wouldn't have lasted too much longer in there. Standing up the smoke was soo thick that you could barely see your hand in front of your face, but the floor was clear.
As soon as he was out, I started banging on everydoor yelling things along the lines of "GET OUT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, EVACUATE THE BUILDING IMMEDIATELY!" I then heard the security gaurd tell me that he was on the 12th floor doing the same thing. At the end of that floor, I instructed the security guard to the Fire Control Room to locate the fire. I had noticed earlier a water leak in that same elevator shaft (there was a big storm outside), so I was thinking of a short. The smoke smelled like an electrical fire. (Oh, and don't ask why I know what an electrical fire vs a regular fire smells like, I just wasn't the smartest kid on the block and wanted to play with everything as a child.) Anywho, he made it downstairs right as the Fire Dept. showed up.
They went to the control panel and diagnosed the location. I was meanwhile running my ass along every floor banging on every single door yelling to evacuate while helping people out of their rooms and pointing to the safest stairwell. I was sweating like a pig by this point. I also think I had said the word evacuate about eighteen gazillion times. Did I mention that smoke and lungs don't go together?
Anywho, we got everyone out safely, I had them check out our rooms that we knew we had disabled guests in, and everything appeared to be dying down. I took the fire crew up the elevator (guest elevator, the guard was in the service elevator at the other end of the hotel) and we stopped at 7. This was the lowest I had seen the smoke. The doors opened up and you couldn't even see down the hall, it was so cloudy. Man, we really evacuated in time!
Anywho, the fire crews were doing an awesome job looking for the fire starting on the lowest floor and working their way up (I let them know that I was willing to bet it was the motor on the roof for the service elevator, but definitely better to be safe than sorry!), then our elevator stopped working. The doors would close but we wouldn't go anywhere. Fun. So we got off, I went down to the desk and they headed up with our chief engineer (had just arrived) to scope things out. After a while, everything was calm and they had isolated it to that elevator. The fire marshall came over and informed me it was ok to allow guests back into the hotel (did I mention that it was 1:30am by now?) from outside where they were standing in their underwear. Oh, did I mention the HUGE storm we were having?? Yup, I had a BUNCH of happy campers on my hands.
I opened up the ballroom doors and ran to the restaurant and started filling pitchers of water and soda and threw on two restaurant sized coffee makers. We grabbed as many towels, blankets, drinks, cups, etc as we could get (the rest of the hotel was not secure yet, so we had to work with what we had in the restaurant and at the front desk) and started passing everything out to try and make everyone happy.
To sum it up, we had to reset the fire alarm system a couple of times, along with doing a lot of other little details, but I am really surprised at how un-complainy the guests were about the whole situation. We were able to get all of the smoke cleared from the floors (thank you VBFD!) and allow everyone back to there rooms around 2:30am.
Turns out that one of the brushes on the elevator motor exploded and burned it up really bad-it had nothing to due with the leak I had seen earlier. I guess the wind outside just blew the smoke straight down the elevator shaft where the poor security guard was riding it. Funny part is that we had just had the tech out that morning doing a sevice job on it. Needless to say we will be giving them a call in a couple hours.
All in all, I smell like ass, have a splitting headache, it's 5am and I have to be back at work at 8am to work until 11pm. :(: Boy, I won't be grumpy!! Wish me luck with dealing with all of the guests tomorrow!! #-o
Jack
Well, I was working late tonight and was getting ready to leave (around 12:45am) when the security guard called over the radio and said he was stuck in the elevator between the 10th and 11th floors. We laughed at him (Myself and the night auditor) and I decide to go get him out (our elevators have seen better days-just like any 20 year old elevator). I went over to retrieve the tool to open the elevator doors when he said to hurry, there was a smoke coming in. :!: Hmmm, that's not a good sign. So I start haulin' ass like a rabid K9 is after me. As I make it around the desk, the fire alarm goes off and I kick into overdrive. It was at about floor 8 that I realized I picked out the wrong week to start working out my legs. On the way up, I radioed the auditor (3rd shift front desk person) to call the chief engineer and tell to get his butt in, ASAP. Of course this is the week that I am acting General Manager. Fuuuuuuuuunnnn. :smile:
I made it to the 10th floor and open the door. Everything looks OK so far, but by now the security guard is yelling for me to come get him out, that he can't breathe or see. People are starting to look out the doors of their rooms andI yell at them to evacuate the hotel immediatly. I round the corner (the hotel is in the shape of an L) and see tons of white smoke. Oh crap. #-o
I made it to the elevator and am holding my breath due to the smoke. All I could think about was getting him out. The smoke was only from the waist up, so I took a deep breath and started breaking in. I opened the door and he was about 5 feet above the floor. He opened it up and all I could think about was a kid in college that did this (climb down) and slipped and fell down the shaft. I told him I was gonna go up one floor and get him out. I hauled it up one more flight and the 11th floor was worse (The stairwells have exhaust fans to clear the smoke out thank goodness.). I had trouble with the door and holding my breath was almost impossible after running up 11 flights of stairs. We got the door open and pulled him up. He was OK, but he wouldn't have lasted too much longer in there. Standing up the smoke was soo thick that you could barely see your hand in front of your face, but the floor was clear.
As soon as he was out, I started banging on everydoor yelling things along the lines of "GET OUT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, EVACUATE THE BUILDING IMMEDIATELY!" I then heard the security gaurd tell me that he was on the 12th floor doing the same thing. At the end of that floor, I instructed the security guard to the Fire Control Room to locate the fire. I had noticed earlier a water leak in that same elevator shaft (there was a big storm outside), so I was thinking of a short. The smoke smelled like an electrical fire. (Oh, and don't ask why I know what an electrical fire vs a regular fire smells like, I just wasn't the smartest kid on the block and wanted to play with everything as a child.) Anywho, he made it downstairs right as the Fire Dept. showed up.
They went to the control panel and diagnosed the location. I was meanwhile running my ass along every floor banging on every single door yelling to evacuate while helping people out of their rooms and pointing to the safest stairwell. I was sweating like a pig by this point. I also think I had said the word evacuate about eighteen gazillion times. Did I mention that smoke and lungs don't go together?
Anywho, we got everyone out safely, I had them check out our rooms that we knew we had disabled guests in, and everything appeared to be dying down. I took the fire crew up the elevator (guest elevator, the guard was in the service elevator at the other end of the hotel) and we stopped at 7. This was the lowest I had seen the smoke. The doors opened up and you couldn't even see down the hall, it was so cloudy. Man, we really evacuated in time!
Anywho, the fire crews were doing an awesome job looking for the fire starting on the lowest floor and working their way up (I let them know that I was willing to bet it was the motor on the roof for the service elevator, but definitely better to be safe than sorry!), then our elevator stopped working. The doors would close but we wouldn't go anywhere. Fun. So we got off, I went down to the desk and they headed up with our chief engineer (had just arrived) to scope things out. After a while, everything was calm and they had isolated it to that elevator. The fire marshall came over and informed me it was ok to allow guests back into the hotel (did I mention that it was 1:30am by now?) from outside where they were standing in their underwear. Oh, did I mention the HUGE storm we were having?? Yup, I had a BUNCH of happy campers on my hands.
I opened up the ballroom doors and ran to the restaurant and started filling pitchers of water and soda and threw on two restaurant sized coffee makers. We grabbed as many towels, blankets, drinks, cups, etc as we could get (the rest of the hotel was not secure yet, so we had to work with what we had in the restaurant and at the front desk) and started passing everything out to try and make everyone happy.
To sum it up, we had to reset the fire alarm system a couple of times, along with doing a lot of other little details, but I am really surprised at how un-complainy the guests were about the whole situation. We were able to get all of the smoke cleared from the floors (thank you VBFD!) and allow everyone back to there rooms around 2:30am.
Turns out that one of the brushes on the elevator motor exploded and burned it up really bad-it had nothing to due with the leak I had seen earlier. I guess the wind outside just blew the smoke straight down the elevator shaft where the poor security guard was riding it. Funny part is that we had just had the tech out that morning doing a sevice job on it. Needless to say we will be giving them a call in a couple hours.
All in all, I smell like ass, have a splitting headache, it's 5am and I have to be back at work at 8am to work until 11pm. :(: Boy, I won't be grumpy!! Wish me luck with dealing with all of the guests tomorrow!! #-o
Jack
