Fire at DFO?

Granny said :

They obviously need special emergency ejection seats in the ladies’ toilet, just in case there are no female security personnel.

*guffaw*

With parachutes of course.

I don’t know what would be more embarrassing – 1 security guard looking at you, or everyone as you parachute down with your underwear around your ankles….

They obviously need special emergency ejection seats in the ladies’ toilet, just in case there are no female security personnel.

*guffaw*

With parachutes of course.

Holden Caulfield said :

“5. security sweep of building for any stragglers – 1 female & 1 male security guard so as to allow toilet checks”

Haha, you can imagine the inquest if something did go pear shaped and some poor sod security guard left some sheilas in the dunnies because he thought he wasn’t allowed to take a peek.

or did and got caught.

Skidbladnir said :

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see DFO as being a huge international target.

Maybe Brand Depot wants to get back for their loss of traffic/funds?

“5. security sweep of building for any stragglers – 1 female & 1 male security guard so as to allow toilet checks”

Haha, you can imagine the inquest if something did go pear shaped and some poor sod security guard left some sheilas in the dunnies because he thought he wasn’t allowed to take a peek.

Department of Farnarkling Obsessively

johnboy said :

One thing Peter, there wasn’t a fire. The evac might have been conducted differently if there had been. I don’t know that and neither do you.

Satisfying you and having a one size fits all evacuation response would be insanely dangerous.

Your admittedly panicky and poor risk assessment makes your contributions to public debate dangerous.

Engage your brain and stop being a menace.

On the subject of letting customers put things aside:

1) any staff telling customers there’s a bomb threat should be strung up by their gonads. “A situation” is all you should ever say. Panic is the killer, keep it in mind.

2) In the case of a hoax the damage is caused by the disruption to the business.

in the several occasions that I have been evacuated as a part of a drill from several multi-national companies, both whilst working there and visiting, at no time were we informed that it was a drill.

I did say that I would listen to the warnings (usually a recorded message) and the sirens.

In a lot of cases, staff are not told that what the emergency is. I remember an evacuation that I participated in when I was at the Applecentre Woden plaza. security came around and informed us to shut up shop and proceed to the evacuation point. we didn’t secure our computers, just pulled the roller door and locked it. And then we calmly walked out, with the dozen or so customers who had been in the store. Once we had the all-clear, back in we went.

If there is any sort of emergency in a building, there needs to be signs up showing the evacuation point. DFO doesn’t have them, or if they do, I don’t know where they are.

I did not say it was a fire, but consider this, JB, I want to be safe when shopping. I am not insane in my desire to shop somewhere safely – from fire, flood or other act.

This is a new shopping centre, for want of a better phrase. Prior to opening, all staff including shop staff should have been drilled in evacuation. Or perhaps they were, over and over again. Sometimes this can dull the response. I don’t know. whatever the reason for the slow response, thank god it wasn’t a real event.

My poor risk assessment would involve the following:

1. Identify the people most likely at risk of being left behind. (elderly, disabled, young children)
2. start moving the public towards a pre-defined and visible position (and clearly marked on internal signage) away from the building, at no risk to the public(no crossing roads, etc if at all possible).
3. assist the people at risk.
4. marshal at evac point.
5. security sweep of building for any stragglers – 1 female & 1 male security guard so as to allow toilet checks
6. security to check all shops locked.
6. once all clear is given, allow public back in the building.

If this is done quickly, without a sense of urgency, so as to avoid panic, the building can be evacuated in 10-15 mins. The remaining 5mins may be the difference between casualties or not.

Department of Foreign Objects?

astrojax said :

DFO is a brilliant target for a loopy crazed urban terrorist – they don’t even have to remember or spell whole words…

It has a D in it, so it must be a Department of Something, and it only has a few letters, so it must be important, like the ATO…

DFO is a brilliant target for a loopy crazed urban terrorist – they don’t even have to remember or spell whole words…

Yeah, I don’t think anyone ever expects it to be the real deal.

I can remember sitting outside at school, when there’d been some bomb threat or other from some individual seeking attention, and we’d all be like, “Cool! Right in the middle of maths.”

It’s never even occurred to me that the police might really find a bomb. It’s always just a bit of drama and boredom mixed up together. Glad I’m not the person who has to go looking, but!

True JB, doesn’t change the fact that my primary concern in an evacuation is my own safety. Protecting the IP of my employer doesn’t rate…at all. Nor should it.

remember that any non-drill evacuation is as likely to be a third party looking to exploit the confusion as it is to be the real deal.

I wonder if the unions have any guidelines on this?

Haha, yep. Seriously though….they actually send the security team around checking that we’ve done what they expect when we have fire drills.

You rebel, justbands!

*chuckle*

> I still feel that if a building’s worth evacuating, it’s worth evacuating now

I’m with you on that one. I still find it amazing that my employer (& many others I’m sure) expects me/us to do things like lock screens, put away important papers etc. as part of an EMERGENCY evacuation plan. Staggering. If there’s an emergency…I’m sorry large multi-national organisation that I work for, but f**k your important papers…I’m simply leaving the building.

Aaah… what a funny read (aside from the personal terrorism anecdotes) this has been. The paranoia oozed out of the pixels on my screen.

Depends entirely if you treat the embassy soil in foreign lands as “Australia”.Or the white powder attacks on the Indonesian embassy as ‘not part of Indonesia’.

One way, we’ve experienced international terrorism and exported it, the other we’ve only had domestic terrorism affect Australia.

Anyway, back ontopic to DFO and their lack of emergency management.

johnboy said :

On the subject of letting customers put things aside:

1) any staff telling customers there’s a bomb threat should be strung up by their gonads. “A situation” is all you should ever say. Panic is the killer, keep it in mind.

2) In the case of a hoax the damage is caused by the disruption to the business.

That’s true. The crowd mentality in action is an awful thing.

However, if the shop assistants were still taking money and putting items under the counter, it sounds as if they may have erred too much in the other direction.

Surely they should have just calmly but firmly evacuated their shop and moved out?

I still feel that if a building’s worth evacuating, it’s worth evacuating now. Otherwise they should have just announced something like:

“Hello, shoppers. A situation has arisen, and it is probably advisable to evacuate the building at some stage in the near future. Therefore DFO will be closing temporarily in fifteen minutes’ time. Please make your way to the counter and finalise your purchases. Thank you for shopping at DFO, and have a nice day.”

We’ve only ever had domestic terrorism in Australia, as far as I can recall.

But as domestic terrorism is at all time lows anyone who starts saying we need to worry about “terror” is referring to imported terrorism, particularly of the Islamic breed.

I find it’s the argument of the simple minded who long for more certainty in their lives and are jealous that their grand parents or parents got to live through WWII when everything seemed simpler.

> Individual, random violence sprees are not systematic.

Doesn’t mention that it has to be a group…an individual can be a terrorist. Also, “sytematic”…consisting of a system, methodical in procedure…one nutter with a bomb looking to pay less tax (or whatever his gripe is) can still qualify there.

From Wikipedia:
“Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”

Individual, random violence sprees are not systematic.

> Why do people always jump onto the terrorism bandwagon? Howard sure has indoctrinated us hasn’t he? Of far more likelihood would be someone disaffected with the government. And JB I’d suggest that DFO *could* well be a target for someone after a bunch of public servants in this town.

Errr….no. You’re making assumptions as to who or what constitues a “terrorist”. I’m pretty sure Islamic militants don’t hold a monopoly on terrorism, someone dsaffected with the Government threatening to blow up a shopping centre IS a terrorist.

One thing Peter, there wasn’t a fire. The evac might have been conducted differently if there had been. I don’t know that and neither do you.

Satisfying you and having a one size fits all evacuation response would be insanely dangerous.

Your admittedly panicky and poor risk assessment makes your contributions to public debate dangerous.

Engage your brain and stop being a menace.

On the subject of letting customers put things aside:

1) any staff telling customers there’s a bomb threat should be strung up by their gonads. “A situation” is all you should ever say. Panic is the killer, keep it in mind.

2) In the case of a hoax the damage is caused by the disruption to the business.

Why do people always jump onto the terrorism bandwagon? Howard sure has indoctrinated us hasn’t he? Of far more likelihood would be someone disaffected with the government. And JB I’d suggest that DFO *could* well be a target for someone after a bunch of public servants in this town.

On the evacuation, it was strange that the first evacuation call was a simple voice announcement, which I almost completely missed (used to tuning out bogus security calls in supermarkets I guess). It was only some minutes later, when we were outside the building, that actual alert sirens started. So people should keep that in mind when slagging off at the laggards.

And the sirens were very different. Why would DFO use a different alert system when almost every worker in this town of regular fire drills is well familiar with the standard two-level barp, barp and whoop, whoop alert sirens?

None of the wardens were making any attempt to prevent people from using the escalators. And there was no attempt by either wardens or police to move people away from their congregation immediately outside the main doors.

Lessons to be learnt from this one DFO.

In relation to your earlier comment, I think that is what we all want, peterh. I am sure any one of us would have followed instructions, except for all those people who didn’t who may be on the Darwin Award end of the scale.

Granny said :

Whatever info the marshal had I’ve got to say that, if you can’t get people out of a building in twenty minutes, why even bother evacuating? May as well just leave them to shop till they drop ….

Anyone I know whose home has burnt down reckons it is frightening how quickly it happens.

my father’s place was completely destroyed in 15mins. brick walls collapsed, everything in 15 mins.

DFO is essentially a big warehouse with cubicle stores, sitting above a car park the same length and breadth of the floor space. if It was on fire, with tin roofs and tin walls, it would become an oven…

*chuckle*

Yeah, they are all new and it’s good that they’re getting a bit of practice.

It is pretty disgusting that people were expecting the staff to put things under the counter for them, though. My guess is that the staff probably couldn’t leave until the customers were out, and those people could have been selfishly endangering the lives of the shop assistants. Who did they think was going to buy the item while everyone was busily out being evacuated anyway?

Granny said :

Or the commuters in London suspected any problem with their bus or train service. But I do agree with JB about the fear factor. We are much more likely to meet a grisly end in a car crash or having our guts eaten out by cancer.

Granny, I just think that even a hoax at DFO should have been taken seriously, until an all clear was given.

The fact that “it is a hoax and lets ignore it” shouldn’t be a factor these days. Just like the spate of white powder deliveries that we saw at a couple of businesses and govt departments, any call made to a business, department or school must be treated as serious.

The consequences of ignoring a threat involving a bomb or other form of danger should be considered, as there will eventually be something that happens in australia, be it a crazy person or act of terror that will hit us at home.

If JB feels that I am “wetting myself” over this, he is right. I have a level of paranoia stemming from my need to protect my children – I would prefer that I left DFO straight away if in the situation that skid was in, as I am not an expert, nor do i have all the information that the Centre management has. If I am in a shop, as I have already mentioned, I can go back there after the all clear is given.

Granted, I may never encounter any situations in my day to day activities, but if I do, I will follow direction by the authorities, or the management of the place that I am at.

All I want is to ensure that my kids get a chance to grow up and reach their potential. if it means I evacuate when directed to do so, so be it.

Bear in mind here that whoever was in control was looking at a crowded mall and inexperienced staff.

They’d have known that panic is often more dangerous than the actual disaster.

Depending on what they knew they might have decided to take a softer approach to the evacuation than they would have if there was a fire or if they had a huge bomb with a ticking timer on it.

I imagine they would have then been a little disappointed by how softly it was done.

I’m guessing they’ll have a few more drills in the coming weeks.

Whatever info the marshal had I’ve got to say that, if you can’t get people out of a building in twenty minutes, why even bother evacuating? May as well just leave them to shop till they drop ….

Anyone I know whose home has burnt down reckons it is frightening how quickly it happens.

BenMac said :

I think it’s naive to debate what is and isn’t a terrorist target.

I’ve not yet used the word ‘never’ ‘is’ or ‘is not’, only “I don’t see [it] being a huge target” and ‘probably be better’.
I’m willing to admit I’m an amateur acting only on intuition and my own logic, but still entertain non-zero probability ideas.

BenMac said :

I doubt anyone thought the Sari Club in Bali was a target.

This would depend on if you wanted a Kon-Tiki assessment, an ASIS assessment, or a locals’-eye-view , etc.
Just as I don’t trust Fox News for a critical view of the Republican party, I wouldn’t trust a travel agent to tell me about Indonesian politics.

peterh said :

even a fire would have created casualties in 20 mins in that building.

But there was no fire.

It’s entirely possible that this was handled badly.

But without knowing what information the head marshal was working with, getting huffy about it is just bluster and bullcrap.

Or the commuters in London suspected any problem with their bus or train service. But I do agree with JB about the fear factor. We are much more likely to meet a grisly end in a car crash or having our guts eaten out by cancer.

johnboy said :

peterh I promise you this.

There is no damage that terrorists can do to this country which will equal the damage done by people like you wetting themselves.

JB, as a first aid officer, and a person who has served in the ADF, I dearly hope that this kind of thing never occurs here.

I also hope that every store, mall, office and school has the foresight to evacuate on a hoax. For it may not be a hoax.

I want to know that my wife, family or friends are given their best chance of survival.

One of my mates was in the twin towers, I had spoken to him only the day before.

and then he was gone.

You think I am wetting myself??

try telling that to the families of the people who died in NY.

I will continue to evac when ordered out. If I hear sirens, or other warning systems, I will pay attention to them, wherever I am.

All I can do is to ensure the safety of my family. If DFO cannot ensure my safety, as I would expect of any of the shopping centres, what hope is there for any of us?

even a fire would have created casualties in 20 mins in that building.

On the contrary, Bali, and the nightclubs, had been the subject of a whole string of official warnings.

I think it’s naive to debate what is and isn’t a terrorist target. I doubt anyone thought the Sari Club in Bali was a target.

peterh I promise you this.

There is no damage that terrorists can do to this country which will equal the damage done by people like you wetting themselves.

I agree that DFO is an unlikely terrorist target, and it would be more of a CrazyChester thing if anything happened.

Sadly Port Arthur is proof that these sort of people do snap from time to time in normal everyday places, and I would hope there would be some lessons learned by the DFO management in the future.

What would RiotACT be without Skid for crying out loud!

Skidbladnir said :

Yes, no management system is perfectly crazy-stranger-immune or crazy-resistant.
The Saga of CrazyChester is a proof of this, for example.
Calling in a warning the threat rather than just having the targets blissfully unaware shows some kind of human concern for the public, though.

This could have been a -lot- worse, but it also could have been a lot better.
But every ‘public’ place should be able to at least have something better than “hoping the cats eventually herd themselves to safety” as an emergency management practice.

(and even then, a secondary munition in a predictable evac area have been proven effective in the past, but imply a complexity I wouldn’t expect in a crazyperson event [I am not an expert, though])

ok, what if time.

what if a person, recently returned from a tour of afghanistan, or iraq, with mental issues, but a small shred of decency left, decided to blow up a shopping centre?

once packing the bomb into a strategic location, lets say the carpark, they then decided to warn the centre management that it was there.

would the centre management of the:

canberra centre, Hyperdome, woden plaza, belconnen mall, riverside plaza or other shopping mall dismiss this threat?

no.

They would err on the side of caution, and evacuate their mall. structured evacuation, no panic, just like a drill.

would you be allowed into a car park, underneath the mall?

no way.

you would be escorted out and moved towards an evacuation area.

these organisations that run the shopping malls don’t want to make a mistake. it is better to evacuate, than to leave people in the shops, where they may be in harm’s way.

It is also a part of the duty of care that the mall owners have to their staff, the shop owners and their staff and to the public.

Yes, no management system is perfectly crazy-stranger-immune or crazy-resistant.
The Saga of CrazyChester is a proof of this, for example.
Calling in a warning the threat rather than just having the targets blissfully unaware shows some kind of human concern for the public, though.

This could have been a -lot- worse, but it also could have been a lot better.
But every ‘public’ place should be able to at least have something better than “hoping the cats eventually herd themselves to safety” as an emergency management practice.

(and even then, a secondary munition in a predictable evac area have been proven effective in the past, but imply a complexity I wouldn’t expect in a crazyperson event [I am not an expert, though])

The fact it was a hoax suggests the staff made a correct threat assessment (ie, very low).

The question, which we don’t know the answer to, is whether they made it as the result of a credible process? or just lucked out through laziness?

Bear in mind that a panic can kill more people than an actual bomb or fire.

Also the big boys don’t phone in warnings.

Granny said :

Then again part of being crazy is having one’s analytical abilities shut down to whatever degree. The DFO could well symbolise to a crazy person what windmills, prostitutes and barber’s basins did for the Man of La Mancha. I am serious.

agreed, granny. The glib attitudes of the sales staff in DFO on this occasion promoted the idea that this was nothing to worry about. I will always treat any fire alarm, bomb threat etc as being a serious and real event.

crazy people may decide to do something dumb when the voices tell them to, or there is a personal affront, etc, etc.

I am just saying that as individuals, we should all ensure our own personal safety and that of our families. If the shop doesn’t want to close, I don’t care. I can go back in after the all clear is given.

Then again part of being crazy is having one’s analytical abilities shut down to whatever degree. The DFO could well symbolise to a crazy person what windmills, prostitutes and barber’s basins did for the Man of La Mancha. I am serious.

Skidbladnir said :

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see DFO as being a huge international target.
As targets go, there would probably be far better ones for even domestic terror.
You’d want destruction for attention, but the target should be symbolic, so your message lasts longer than your chaos.

World Trade Centre: Your jahiliyyah capitalism offends us, and we will bring it down.
School buses in Israel: We move amongst you already, and can destroy your future.

Bombing DFO: Im a crazy person with no legitimate axe to grind, so will threaten a crowd in the regional outlet of a corporation based in Queensland.

true, skid, but even so, if someone decided to do it, the current timeframe for evacuation is far too long, the emergency management is absolutely diabolical.

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see DFO as being a huge international target.
As targets go, there would probably be far better ones for even domestic terror.
You’d want destruction for attention, but the target should be symbolic, so your message lasts longer than your chaos.

World Trade Centre: Your jahiliyyah capitalism offends us, and we will bring it down.
School buses in Israel: We move amongst you already, and can destroy your future.

Bombing DFO: Im a crazy person with no legitimate axe to grind, so will threaten a crowd in the regional outlet of a corporation based in Queensland.

johnboy said :

When Bin Laden sits in his cave I doubt the Canberra DFO ranks high in his thoughts.

yes, but the extremist terrorist would see DFO as a massive target against capitalism. (not neccesarily muslim, either)

When Bin Laden sits in his cave I doubt the Canberra DFO ranks high in his thoughts.

Skidbladnir said :

bubzie said :

20 minutes to evacuate??

I was out quick enough, but I noticed a few problems.

The place is designed to encourage Gruen Transference[1] wherever you go (short lines of sight, repetitive design style, no clocks or quick directions for interior landmarks, and the “You Are Here” maps weren’t particularly helpful), which is pretty bad for the public in a fire event.

Shoppers (and staff) were still trying to execute trade even though there were announcements urging everyone to leave, but when staff woke up to the fact that they should be getting people -out- instead of letting them pay for things, they were still taking “can you set this aside for me for once this is over” requests.

Security guards were encouraging people to move down the escalators and into the carparks, (which if it were a bomb threat, might not be the wisest move) not urging them to leave and get away from the building.

So after going outside to wait to meet up with the people I was there with, and hanging around with nobody sharing any information, moved in to overhear the centre staff saying that there were people still slowly making their way out.

After a while of not hearing any reason behind why we were all still waiting outside, we just walked down one of the exit ramps into the carpark and drove away.

While it might have been the first uncontrolled test of their evacuation procedures, as a member of the crowd, it seemed a shambolic affair, and left a lot to be desired.

[1]: Gruen Transference, its more than just a tv show, its a shopping mall design philosophy.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-gruen-transfer.htm

skid,

if this was a real event, not a hoax, there would have been serious injuries or worse, considering that we are all constantly reminded to be on alert for a potential act of terror, a bomb could have brought that building down in 10-15 mins. Maybe DFO needs to review their evac policy and get their shops up to speed.

potential for injury – either in the store complex or underneath in the carpark is far too great. I was at DFO the day before, my wife commented that the fact that the entire carpark is underground, and underneath the stores, a mass evacuation would be chaotic if the place had to be evacuated. There aren’t any paths into the carpark that we saw, how does a person with a pram get out of the carpark if the lifts aren’t working? and where are the signs to tell you?

bubzie said :

20 minutes to evacuate??

I was out quick enough, but I noticed a few problems.

The place is designed to encourage Gruen Transference[1] wherever you go (short lines of sight, repetitive design style, no clocks or quick directions for interior landmarks, and the “You Are Here” maps weren’t particularly helpful), which is pretty bad for the public in a fire event.

Shoppers (and staff) were still trying to execute trade even though there were announcements urging everyone to leave, but when staff woke up to the fact that they should be getting people -out- instead of letting them pay for things, they were still taking “can you set this aside for me for once this is over” requests.

Security guards were encouraging people to move down the escalators and into the carparks, (which if it were a bomb threat, might not be the wisest move) not urging them to leave and get away from the building.

So after going outside to wait to meet up with the people I was there with, and hanging around with nobody sharing any information, moved in to overhear the centre staff saying that there were people still slowly making their way out.

After a while of not hearing any reason behind why we were all still waiting outside, we just walked down one of the exit ramps into the carpark and drove away.

While it might have been the first uncontrolled test of their evacuation procedures, as a member of the crowd, it seemed a shambolic affair, and left a lot to be desired.

[1]: Gruen Transference, its more than just a tv show, its a shopping mall design philosophy.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-gruen-transfer.htm

The correct response to any emergency is a matter for the fire marshals and their assessment of the threat.

But a 20 minute clearout time does indicate a lack of marshals and/or training.

We were there when the evacuation was called. Almost got all the way around.
Rained out of Floriade, bombed out of DFO, problematic day really…

Strange that the police allowed us to get cars from under the centre if it was a bomb threat.

No doubt it killed the afternoon’s trade for the businesses there – and a bumper time they were having too.

Like is often the case with various emergencies, I was surprised at our folk in blue’s seemingly poor crowd control and incident management training.

my wife used to work for the hyperdome – she was appalled that it took 20mins to evacuate a single level building – average time for the hyperdome was 10mins, they always aimed for 5mins.

and they didn’t let people leave the carpark in their cars, either – who the hell thought that was a good idea?

if there was a fire or bomb or flooding event, the last place I would want to be would be under the shopping centre or lower than ground level….

They did fly a plane, unfortunatley since the airport is skint, all they could afford was an Ultralight. An electric one.

Brand Depot wouldn’t do that, they’d just fly a plane into the place.

Bomb threat?? Did that come from the airport side of town??

Sister in law said it was a bomb threat and Police evacuated everyone.

20 minutes to evacuate??

oh my god!! for shame people, for shame!!

(Heck, it’d take me, a stereotypical teenager to go shopping in that time there!)

The interesting part was where they let all the drivers into the the carpark below to get their cars while the alarms were still going and the DFO itself was still off limits.

the brand depot was broken into yesterday – was a bit concerning to see 2 forensics units and 2 police patrol cars. wonder if it was the same group, testing dfo’s response times?