Accountability
Forest Preserves
Public Safety
Cook County Budget
Forest Pres. Budget
Property Tax Appeal
Health & Hospitals
Policy Resolutions

The task was daunting: Could a panel headed by former federal appellate justice Abner Mikva unravel why six people died during a fire at a Loop high-rise owned by Cook County? And could the so-called Mikva commission suggest new safety protocols to prevent, and better combat, future high-rise emergencies? The Mikva panel has now spoken. Its 94-page verdict is a model of thoughtful scrutiny and a compelling indictment of shortcomings that, if left uncorrected, likely will cost more lives in the city that birthed the skyscraper. Some of the Mikva panel's recommendations will prove controversial. For example, a proposal to require that commercial high-rises be retrofitted with sprinkler systems would yield obvious benefits, but at considerable costs. The Chicago City Council will have to weigh those benefits and costs as it considers two sprinkler proposals now on the table. Taken together, though, the Mikva panel's 33 recommendations--20 of them directed at the Chicago Fire Department--no doubt would improve safety in high-rises. Nine days after the deadly Oct. 17 conflagration, this page attempted to synthesize the troubling questions the blaze had raised. The Mikva commission addressed those questions in its written report and in comments at a press conference Wednesday. Specifically: • Did Cook County cut corners and imperil safety when it renovated the building in the 1990s? And did the [County Board President John] Stroger political donors who were under contract to manage the structure have the necessary safety precautions in place? The Mikva report criticizes the building's management and security companies, but not the Cook County officials who hired them. The county failed to install sprinklers after it acquired the building in 1996, and again when building managers proposed a sprinkler system in 2002. Mikva said Wednesday that his panel tried to find out why the county hadn't installed sprinklers: "Who's responsible? I suppose you'd have to say the County Board." As for the possible role of cronyism in the hiring of the politically connected 69 West Washington Management Co. to run the building--as alleged by Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy--the panel trod lightly: It verified that the county used a competitive process to select the building managers. Beyond that, the panel "does not offer an opinion on the ultimate selection of the Management Company." The report does allege that "acts and omissions" by building managers contributed to the loss of lives. It says managers failed to train the engineering staff in evacuation procedures; following those procedures "would likely have kept a number of people out of the stairwells, including some of the victims." The report also faults managers for inadequate fire drills and for failing to train custodians in fire protocols. • Does Chicago's building code adequately protect people who work in, dwell in or visit high-rises? Or should building owners and managers be subject to tougher safety standards? The panel limited its sprinkler proposal to older commercial structures, even though most high-rise casualties occur in residential buildings. "We were trying to live in the world of the possible," Mikva said, contending that owners of commercial buildings can better afford sprinklers than owners of apartment buildings or condominium towers. "We drew that line," he said. "Is it an absolutely rational line? No." The panel also suggests that it may be easier to replace Chicago's building code than to further amend its life safety provisions. One recommendation: that Illinois adopt a single model building code statewide. That would replace a patchwork of regulations, many of which are obsolete and contradictory. Downstate legislators will gripe about a loss of local control, but a uniform, modernized code might save many lives. • Did Chicago firefighters properly balance the need to suppress the blaze with the safety of occupants attempting to flee via a stairwell? It is jarring to read the allegation that a fire department's conduct was "a significant factor in the loss of life and serious injuries" in an emergency. On Wednesday, panel members essentially said the department's promotion policies had produced commanders who made wrong decisions--including a greater emphasis on fire suppression than on rescue work. Several panel members forcefully argued that promotions be driven by merit considerations and testing--a notion sure to provoke debate in a department that has wrestled with questions about the roles of patronage and affirmative action in hirings and promotions. • What protocol determines who asks building occupants to evacuate? And in this tragic case, did someone badly bungle that decision? The report says that in violation of department directives, fire commanders didn't take control of the building's communications system and didn't stop the security company from broadcasting instructions for an evacuation of the whole building rather than a few floors. Taken together, panel members suggested Wednesday, those failings helped lead building occupants into the southeast stairwell where they died. Their plight was compounded by the failure of fire commanders to complete a top-to-bottom search of that stairwell until after the fire was extinguished, "despite the fact," the report says, "that many firemen knew that the stairwell doors were locked and other firemen testified that they saw civilians in the southeast stairwell as they were setting up their attack." As he delivered his commission's report Wednesday, Abner Mikva lamented the way we learn lessons that save lives: "We progress from tragedy to tragedy." The Mikva report is an impressive textbook full of lessons learned at the expense of tragedy. It is not, however, the last word: James Lee Witt, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is writing a separate fire report for state government. But the lessons of these reports--of this fire--will be lost if the City of Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois don't make the prevention of more high-rise fires and the effective emergency response to these tragedies an urgent and lasting priority. Exploiting these lessons for the safety of others is the least that the six victims of the County Building fire deserve.