HRS fire exit door found jammed shut

Students could notStudents could notopen door during fire Residents of High Rise South evacuated the dormitory yesterday afternoon after a small fire sparked in the building's rooftop lounge, a HRS receptionist confirmed. But several students said they had difficulty exiting the building when they confronted an inoperable exit door at the bottom of the dormitory's center staircase. College freshman Bruce Frey was on the 21st floor when the fire alarm began to sound. "We walked down 21 flights and tried to get out of the center staircase fire exit at the bottom, but it was locked," he said. Joseph BonZe, a College freshman, said he did not know what to do when he realized the door did not open. Frey said he and BonZe were forced to go back up to the main floor and were told to exit through the side stairwell. "It's scary to think that maintenance would be so careless as to leave the door locked," BonZe said. Joseph Worton, a safety specialist in the Fire and Occupational Safety Office, said last night that he was not aware of the problem. Although it is the responsibility of Residential Maintenance to repair a broken fire door, Worton said it is the duty of his office to ensure that safety standards are maintained and that facilities are up to code. "If it's an exit door, it's supposed to be operational," he said. He added that the fire door could not have been locked, since fire exit doors do not have locks. "The only doors that have locks are the ones on the roofs," he said. Worton said his office will investigate the problem this morning. But residents of the high rise say that the inoperable fire door has been a long-standing problem. "This problem has been going on for a year at least," College sophomore Jess McGrath said yesterday. McGrath first encountered the closed door last semester during an announced fire drill. "I tried to open the door," he said. "I kicked it and kicked it and kicked and it still didn't open." HRS resident Steve Schorr, a College sophomore, had a similar experience with the door last month. McGrath said the problem was reported to Residential Maintenance more than a month ago. "I know people who filled out white cards," he said. "As far as I know, it was supposed to have been fixed." Frey said a broken fire door could be a safety hazard to students. "I thought it was kind of unsafe," he said. "If it was a really big fire, people could get trapped in there."