Intelligent safety and emergency lighting solutions in disaster situations

Disasters. They always happen, with a probability of occurrence that is almost independent of the high-speed development of our technology, economy and society as a whole. The most important measure humanity can take is to focus on reducing the loss of human lives and to plan intelligently the measures that need to be taken in order to reach a high level of overall disaster resilience. We will bring into discussion some of the challenges that can appear when people need to find their way out from interior spaces in case of disaster. Some of those disasters can cause electric power outage in the building, leaving the evacuation routes visibility relying only on the electrical emergency lighting systems and we will see that those systems are not always infallible. Case study: the ice storm phenomenon that impacted Canada in December 2013. At the height of the storm over 300,000 Toronto Hydro customers had no electricity or heating.[1] Unexpected problem: Basements and other interior areas without natural light in multiple high-rise buildings in Toronto have been left in complete darkness due to the failure of the safety lighting systems, endangering the evacuation of the people inside. A new problem arose : can there be an alternative solution for visually signaling the escape routes? Objectives: Technological solutions for this impasse exist, but are being used in other applications: interior decorations, entertainment industry, exploration research and military industry. Those possible alternative solutions are: phosphorescent elements and chemical light tubes. We will analyze how and if we can implement these technologies through smart design on a large scale for the emergency evacuation paths. Case study solution: project (Toronto - Arc Condominiums) emergency escape route signaling through design and innovative use of phosphorescent mosaic. [1] Ice storm: Toronto Hydro CEO promises power within hours to remaining customers | Toronto Star. Thestar.com. 29 December 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2014.