Low-Risk High-Rise
Elevating Security & Safety in Towers
By Khali Henderson

Photoluminescent signage from Permalight aids evacuation.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE ATTACKS on the World Trade Center have focused attention on security at landmark high-rise buildings in every metropolitan area. The reasons may not be so obvious. “9/11 had nothing to do with high-rise security,” says consultant Randy Nason, vice president and manager of the Security Consulting Group for C.H. Guernsey & Co., in an interview at the Total Facility Management Show in late April. “It was about lapses in airport security.”

What it did do, says Nason and other security experts, is force tower executives to act on the tighter security plans they had made following the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

“Buying software is one thing; implementing it is another,” noted John Piccininni, vice president of sales for security vendor Hirsch Electronics Corp., commenting about facilities’ inaction in an interview at the TFM Show. Regardless of the reasons for 9/11, he says, it made tenants of high-rises — presumed terrorists targets — uneasy. “[Towers] are commercial businesses. They need to keep their tenants and security or the appearances of security make the customers feel better.”

Newly integrated into Hirsh Electronics’ Velocity access control system, EasyLobby allows hosts to pre-register visitors for quick credentialing.

Increased focus on security and accompanying demand for its automation, experts says, has resulted in advancements in security technologies and reductions in their prices over the last 2 1/2 years. One of the key movements is toward integration, not only of security technologies (e.g. access control with video surveillance and intercom), but also security with HVAC and life and fire safety. There are differing opinions on how far this integration should go, but its advocates, such as Liza Katpica at Honeywell Building Solutions, say a key benefit in integration is cost savings from the consolidation of management personnel for the different disciplines as well as increased automation of response procedures between once-discrete building systems. This can be particularly important to building managers in cost-justifying capital expenditures for new technologies.

Where the holistic approach works especially well is for single-tenant buildings with centralized control. Shared tenants with little control over the building systems, however, should seek to integrate security systems where possible, experts say.

Lobby. Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, facility managers beefed up their lobby guard staffs in an effort to step up security.

Roger Mellor, chairman of HMA Consulting Inc. cites increased manpower as a quick and effective first step in improving access control by creating the “presence” of security. “We are seeing more control points in the lobby,” he says. Among the automated access control options,Mellor says many towers are deploying optical turnstiles in their lobbies to augment or replace guards, mechanical turnstiles or other card-based access systems.

ObjectVideo software helps security staff proactively monitor surveillance video. In this simulated scan from a water treatment plant, the human target has left behind a bag, which is predetermined as a potential threat. The new Forensic option detects patterns, such as casing.

Nason concurs. “[Turnstiles are] fast and easy to use,” he says, and explains they can help speed employees and visitors through the lobby (see story on turnstiles on page 26). One reason they are a more frequent addition, he says, is they have come down in price; the sticker price for optical readers has decreased from about $25,000 per lane to $15,000.

Badging systems also have been implemented at the lobby level for tenants as well as visitors. Consultant Ross Bulla, president of The Threadstone Group Inc., says he is seeing more integration of access control and visitormanagement systems. Hirsch Electronics, for example, announced at ISC West in Chicago the integration of its access control system with EasyLobby, a visitor-management system that streamlines the check-in process and offers greater control than paper guest books.

The integration with Hirsch allows a visitor to be quickly checked into EasyLobby through scanning a driver’s license or business card. A temporary proximity card can be programmed automatically into the Hirsch Velocity system and linked to the employee being visited. Easy Lobby eAdvance also enables authorized employees or tenants to preregister visitors via a Web browser.

Bulla says the automation of visitor credentialing can be taken a step further with new kiosk systems that enable visitors to alert their hosts they have arrived and allow for remote verification of their identity and automatic generation of credentials. One example of such a system is the LobbyWorks Kiosk from EdgeLinx Systems. LobbyWorks is integrated with Honeywell’s access control system, the companies announced at ISC West.

In some cases, like the Sears Tower, weapons-detection scanners serve as a control point for screening people and bags. Similar scanning devices are used in the mailrooms to detect explosives (see story on explosives detection). Consultant Nason says the chemical-detection technology is quite good, responding in less than 20 seconds while biological-substance detection currently is less effective. He recommends companies consider moving the mailroom off site or, at minimum, isolate it from the HVAC systems.

Al Croteau, vice president of security integrator North American Video, says bombsniffing dogs also are a good addition to address suspect packages before handling them (see related story).

Perimeter. While perimeter security is key to most access control programs, metro high-rise buildings typically do not have much in the way of a perimeter. It can be narrow as a few yards of cement that form the sidewalk about the base of the structure. So, while deploying barriers can help to keep vehicles out, they do little to mitigate overpressure should a bomb explode in a car parked on the street.

“The only setback is the sidewalk, so the overpressure reduction [provided by a barrier] is limited,” says Nason, who recommends windows be replaced with blast-mitigating laminates or window films.

Mellor says a blast-mitigation study can tell tower security directors how many floors will require the installation of treated glass to help reduce potential injuries from flying glass in the event of an explosion at the street level.

Experts say tower security directors also should focus on surveillance, noting parked cards and loiterers as suspicious. Bulla says “natural surveillance” can be a helpful deterrent.

“Every major terrorist event has involved ‘casing.’ Their biggest fear is being seen,” Bulla says, recommending that facilities do simple things like remove trees that obstruct occupants’ views of the perimeter or adding lighting to illuminate the scene properly. “This enables people to see the view and potentially observe surreptitious activity. It also goes a long way to prevent minor crimes,” such as theft, he says.

Another aid in this pursuit is surveillance technology that detects not only aberrant motion, but the lack of motion, such as the placement of a briefcase in a lobby. ObjectVideo, for example, offers ObjectVideo VEW 2.0, which works with existing surveillance systems to allow users to define rules so they can detect, classify and track potential threats to their environments in real time. ObjectVideo products detect the difference between a normal occurrence and a suspicious one. At ISC West, ObjectVideo announced the addition of ObjectVideo Forensics, which among other things, enables security professionals to perform regular analysis of past information to detect possible patterns, such as someone performing ongoing surveillance during the planning of an attack.

“Everyone has been putting in cameras to look for incidents after the fact, this [technology] give us the opportunity to be proactive,” says Nason.

Integrator Croteau says illuminating the perimeter with infrared lights and IRcompatible cameras also extends surveillance to nighttime use. Similarly, he recommends that cameras that capture vehicle license plates. One example is Crest Electronics Inc.’s VeriView,which allows you to magnify images without distortion.

The extreme vertical layout of high-rise buildings also means parking often is located under the building, which presents a considerable risk to the occupants from potential explosive threats. While many towers already have closed them to non-employee use, Croteau says others are shuttering them altogether given their complicity in the first WTC attack and the Oklahoma City bombing. “They are more or less a storage area,” he says.

EdgeLinks’ LobbyWorks kiosk is integrated with Honeywells’s access control system.

Consultant Bulla advises clients to implement a plan for scheduling for deliveries that requires drivers to have photo identification.

“We also recommend shipping clerks issue unique codes to suppliers and ensure they are on the manifest,” says Bulla.

HMA’s Mellor says he anticipates a time when all packages will carry radio frequency identification tags (RFID) that enable instant identification and location of packages. The U.S. Department of Defense already is requiring such a system for supplies that it receives into its facilities at home and abroad and even in the field.

Evacuation What may be the most significant security change is realignment from prevention to response. “For 20 years, we have been trying to prevent the event. It was a rude awakening that we can’t,” says Nason, explaining that security directors now are focused on crisis management and business continuity.

Bulla says, in evaluating evacuation procedures, he recommends that property managers and security staff perform an afterhours drill using only emergency power to exit the building through the stairwells, thus allowing them to identify blind turns and choke points. “What they realize is they need glow-in-the-dark paint on the stairwells ... and redirectional signage.Without it, the stairwell is basically a death zone,” he says.

In addition to photoluminescent exit signs and floor and wall tape, such as those from PermaLight Inc., Bulla recommends adding stairwell lighting. He also advises extending the PA system into the stairwell to help redirect evacuatees, if needed.

While most evacuation plans call for a muster point, Bulla recommends capitalizing on deployed card-based access systems, by using portable readers to ascertain more quickly who has exited the building in a crisis.

As RFID systems become integrated with access control, there are opportunities to automate this process and to pinpoint the location of personnel inside a building. At ISC West, AXCESS International Inc., for example, announced the release of a new RFID-based identification credential capable of transmitting an authorized building access code from inches up to 100 feet from the doorway, providing “hands-free” automatic access to speed up entry. AXCESS’ patented ActiveTag RFID system uses a battery embedded in the cardsized, electronic “tag” for extra-long range identification.

Each tag transmits at UHF frequency band to palm-sized, network-based receivers from 18 inches up to 700 feet away depending upon the antenna used. Tags are activated automatically as they move through a doorway, gate or docking bay, or into a parking/staging area. Tags also autonomously beacon at pre-set intervals for real-time inventory counts and location.