Bring a Flashlight to Costco
We take power for granted. Your power company says that “they are always there.” What happens when the power goes out? When you are at home, light a candle. When you are shopping, on come the emergency lights right? WRONG. If you are shopping at Costco, be sure to bring a flashlight. After the initial screaming stopped, customers took out there cell phones and lit their way out. Needless to say, I was not able to get shopping done…but let’s investigate.
- Lights go out.
- The store is pitch black, there are no emergency lights and no generator.
- After realizing emergency lights are not coming on, you work your way to the front where you hear an employee ask for you to leave your cart and exit the store.
What is wrong?
- No emergency lights
- No supervisors (One employee is asking where the supervisors are.)
- No communication system
- No staff clearing out the store. If you did not come to the front, you would not see any employees.
What should have happened?
- Emergency lights should be installed and should have come on. (In NY it was required of any business to have both lit exit signs and emergency lights.)
- Employees with flashlights should have been clearing out the store. My suggestion would have been to start at the back and work as a team to clear each aisle.
All commercial buildings are required to have clearly marked exits. These must be easily visible from any common area in the building, visible in normal lighting, visible in no lighting. Large buildings must have at least two clearly marked exits visible at all times. There are no exceptions to this code language in the US and Canada. However, enforcement of these requirements is not uniform across the various jurisdictions in North America.
1. You should report this store to your local municipality building and fire code officials.
2. You might want to let the store manager know that photoluminescent exit signs, when installed in exits where there is sufficient normal lighting to charge the signs, always mark the exits when the lights go out. There are no batteries or lamps to fail and maintain as there are with electrical signs. Code compliant photoluminescent exit signs are accepted as replacements or supplements to electrical signs in most areas in North America.
3. Although it is difficult to mark large spaces with floor level exit path markings, it is often possible to define a path with photoluminescent floor markings between exits. Anyone in a situation such as yours could then navigate to the path and then decide which exit was safer to reach.
I am general manager for EverGlow NA, Inc. We manufacture code compliant photoluminescent exit signs and exit path markings that are used in buildings, ships, trains and airplanes. EverGlow photoluminescent signs and markings contain no toxic or radioactive components and are reliable and effective as no other form of emergency lighing can be. For more information, visit our website or call toll free 866-744-4706.
Thanks for the comment! They did have really dimly lit exit signs, guess they are the photoluminescent kind. I always have preferred the battery operated ones. I know they are more expensive to maintain, but they do provide adequate lighting. I talked with them more….it seems that the emergency lights did not activate. My guess is that the power supplying the emergency lights was on a different grid than the main power. I did notice green lights on the ceiling, reminiscent of those battery light “ready” lights. They said the transformer was replaced a few months ago, so maybe this was related.
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