OSHA Issues Citations Over 6 Evacuations of High-Rise

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration slapped the managers of the Great American Building with six citations Monday for safety violations pertaining to last month’s repeated electrical problems.

Though no one was injured in two electrical fires that occurred in late October, OSHA officials expressed concern with the way the evacuation of the building was handled on both occasions. The building at 600 B St. was evacuated six times over three weeks for a variety of electrical problems.

During the first fire Oct. 17, employees in the 24-story high-rise complained that there was no fire alarm and that they had to make their way down smoke-filled stairwells in the dark.

“The major hazard was the building evacuation itself,” said Jack Rhodes, OSHA’s acting area director. “It’s amazing that no one was injured.”

Management Company Cited

Coldwell Banker Real Estate Management Services was cited for five serious violations and one termed less than serious. According to OSHA standards, a serious violation carries a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result--and the company knew or should have known of the hazard. A proposed fine of $5,000 has been levied by the agency, which can be contested within 15 days.

Great American Savings Bank, which occupies about half the building, was also cited for two minor deficiencies in the emergency evacuation plan for its employees, but was not fined.

According to Rhodes, the management company’s major violation was failure to provide reliable backup lighting in the stairwells. At the time of the first fire, officials in the building turned off the emergency generator, believing it was a source of the electrical problem--inadvertently shutting off the lights in the stairwells. After a second fire erupted in an electrical panel three days later, the building was closed a week for repairs, during which time an additional battery-powered lighting system was installed in the stairwells, Rhodes said.

Faulty Alarm System

Coldwell Banker was also cited for the failure of the emergency communications and fire alarm systems to work properly. No alarm sounded during the first fire, and some tenants on the upper floors said they had no idea there was a fire until smoke began seeping into their offices. Some employees said they heard an announcement over the building’s public address system--others said they heard only an unintelligible squawk, and still others heard no warning at all.

During the second fire, shortly before 5 p.m. Oct. 20, the public-address system was operative, but the fire alarm was not. The day before, the building managers had hired security guards to act as “fire wardens” on each floor, and they guided the remaining tenants to safety.

Also among the serious violations cited by OSHA was the failure to provide electrical ground fault protection in the building. Rhodes said it still has not been determined what caused the electrical arcing that ignited insulation on the two occasions or the other power failures. But electricians for Chula Vista Electric Co., brought in by the building’s owners to make repairs, said last month that the trouble was traced to a faulty “sandwich joint” connecting the copper buses, or bars, which conduct electricity throughout the high-rise. During the building closure, the owners--Kowa Real Estate Investments of Japan--spent $300,000 to install temporary electrical cables to replace the buses on four floors, and have said they plan to install a $2.5-million electrical system in coming months.

Exit Markings

Another of OSHA’s major citations was for a lack of proper emergency exit markings. During the evacuations, some employees followed signs directing them to the lobby level--where the fire danger was greatest, Rhodes said. The fifth major violation was an emergency exit door, leading to the first parking level, that was rusted shut, Rhodes said.

The “less than serious” violation was for the building management’s failure to properly account for all employees after the evacuations.

Building manager Colin Stillwagen was unavailable for comment Monday. Stillwagen’s callers were asked to contact Tom Gable of the Gable public relations agency for comment, but Gable did not return phone calls.

An agency employee said Gable was unavailable for comment, but later said Gable would provide a printed response from Coldwell Banker. The release issued by the agency stated: “Coldwell Banker, its consultants and engineers will be analyzing the citations and hope to be able to respond within a week. It anticipates making no other comments until the analysis is completed.”

At a press conference Oct. 27, Stillwagen said the building’s problems were as unavoidable as those caused by earthquakes and other “acts of God,” and denied fault for the fires and power outages.

Proposed Fine

Rhodes said the building management has 15 working days to accept the OSHA findings, pay the proposed penalty and comply with OSHA standards. To date, all of the problems requiring immediate action have been corrected except the exit signs in the stairwells and the rusted exit door, Rhodes said.

If the management company feels the fine is excessive or unwarranted, it can request an informal conference or file an official protest, Rhodes said. Fines are not normally lowered, but it has been done on some occasions, he said.

“At $5,000, it’s not a high fine, but again, we had no injuries,” said Rhodes, noting that OSHA recently fined the First Interstate Bank building in Los Angeles $82,500 after a fire in the high-rise that killed one person and injured 40. “This (fine) is considerably less, but this was not a major fire.”

Rhodes said Stillwagen and Great American officials were extremely cooperative. The building owners, he said, will not be cited because they had no employees in the building and no direct relationship to its day-to-day management.

Great American, the major tenant with more than 450 employees, also received two minor citations--for failing to account for evacuated employees and for failure to train their volunteer “fire wardens” in the use of fire extinguishers.

Citations a Surprise

Great American officials expressed surprise and puzzlement Monday at the citations. “As far as we can tell, Great American is the only tenant in the building with any kind of emergency plan . . . yet we were the only one cited,” said senior executive vice president Rod Tompkins. Bank spokesman Ken Ulrich said the company’s employees were given pocket cards telling them how to use the fire extinguishers, but said OSHA requires hands-on training. Ulrich said Great American will comply with the OSHA standards.

Rhodes confirmed that OSHA does not require buildings to have emergency evacuation plans, but when they do have such a plan it must comply with OSHA guidelines. Rhodes said he was told that Coldwell Banker did have an evacuation plan for the 46 other tenants in the building, although many were unaware of it.

“They had not really made sure each employer had the plan and was training their employees in it,” Rhodes said, adding that Coldwell Banker now has given all tenants a copy of the emergency plan.

An OSHA investigation into the health hazards of the asbestos in the building is still under way. Rhodes said only the firefighters, electricians and possibly some Coldwell Banker employees came in contact with the asbestos, which was contained in the electrical panel rooms where the fires occurred. OSHA will continue monitoring asbestos levels in the building for two or three weeks before announcing results of the investigation, Rhodes said.

After the fires and the weeklong closure of the building, Kowa announced that tenants would receive a 34% refund on November’s rent, plus a 6.6% monthly reduction over a 10-month period beginning in January.

Kowa attorney Bob Walker, in San Francisco, said Monday that the rent reductions were made as “an expression of good faith.” However, he said, Kowa will stand by its refusal to reimburse tenants for out-of-pocket losses they claim to have incurred during the shutdown of their businesses. Walker said he was made aware of the OSHA citations earlier in the day, but said the Kowa officials in Japan had not been informed yet.

The landlord’s offers of rent abatement apparently helped smooth relations with some disgruntled tenants who had earlier threatened to break their leases and move. Paul LaFrenz of Coldwell Banker, the leasing agent for the Great American Building, said Monday that to his knowledge no tenants have moved out since the fires.