When Fires Strike Skyscrapers & Referencing 1974’s The Towering Inferno
When 9/11 happened–references to the film were all over the place and brought the film new life in becoming possibly more than a cheesy multi-star disaster epic that producer Irwin Allen supplied ad nauseam in the early to mid 1970’s. Maybe Allen had a true finger on the pulse of what’s wrong with the world in the world of architecture that we had to go and create our phallic-symboled skyscrapers in every major city where hundreds if not thousands of people had to reside for work or to live. Blame that, perhaps, on an ancient and advanced culture in Yemen who were the first to successfully build 9-story vertical structures without any complications. Middle-Ages Europeans figured they could take it even further (and constructively farther)–particularly the legendary and iron-framed Flaxmill in England that was built in the late 1700’s. Today, Donald Trump would consider the modestly-storied Flaxmill to be a building in need of Viagra–but it truly set in motion the need of Reconstruction-minded Americans in the 1880’s to be better than anyone else on the planet.
Once a skyscraper was built for the first time in Chicago in 1885–America never looked back or even considered what the potentials for things going wrong in a high-rise building could be. Strange that even Hollywood didn’t think about depicting a fire in a high-rise before “The Towering Inferno” came out in December of 1974. Prior to then, American film depicted a giant ape crawling up one and the destruction of some tall buildings in an earthquake, though never the worst-case horror of people being trapped in a tall building with flames upon them and no place to go but (horrifically) out the window.
Even more ironic you might say is when “The Towering Inferno” invented a hi-tech scenario to put out a fire in a high-rise to save most lives–while sacrificing some…
Million-gallon water tanks on the roof of “The Glass Tower”…
Engineers probably scoffed when they saw the depiction of Paul Newman (playing Doug Roberts, the architect of the Glass Tower…the tallest and glassiest building in the world) giving instructions to the Chief Fireman, Michael O’Hallorhan (played by Steve McQueen) to blow up the massive water tanks on the roof so the water would spread down into the building and put the fire out. They all agree that if people trapped inside tied themselves to chairs–they wouldn’t be carried away by the water. Of course, not everybody would be able to do that. In the end, of course, it works–while some die from drowning in the water…as was an apparent requirement in an Irwin Allen disaster flick contract a familiar character actor had to sign.
Seeing how ingenious such a set-up would be for a high-rise you’d think would have been imitated in later real-life skyscraper designs. If more recent skyscrapers around the world have water tanks on the roof that could be used to put a fire that’s impossible to put out otherwise–then they keep it a secret. The Twin Towers, though, never did build such a thing–and we unfortunately know the horror that happened as the result. It’s impossible to speculate if blowing up massive water tanks on the Twin Tower roofs would have put the intense flames out that ultimately melted the steel support beams to the point of collapse. An engineer would likely say that blowing up water tanks on a roof would cause even more problems than helping. At least “The Towering Inferno” sent the message that unique methods of saving people should be considered rather than telling everyone that they’re automatically doomed when trapped in a high-rise fire.
The death of the breeches buoy in high-rise rescues…
If you’ve ever seen “The Towering Inferno”, then they sent the clear message that not only do people panic when trying to be saved from a high-rise–but a breeches buoy just shouldn’t be used to rescue large amounts of people at once. If you’ve never heard of a breeches buoy–it’s the rope-shaped/flotation device that helicopters use to rescue people from mostly water during floods. Sometimes, though, they’ve been known to rescue people off buildings as well as any place that puts human beings in peril. In a horrific scene in “Towering Inferno”, however, a huge group of desperate people on one of the top floors grab onto the rope and ultimately fall multiple stories when the rope breaks from the intense weight.
Obviously, rescue crews learned well from the film–because this wasn’t even considered during 9/11. Most high-rise fires don’t bother with this anymore either when so many people need to be saved. Saving one or two lives is obviously still important, even though sacrificing hundreds for the sake of only a few people is obviously just too outnumbered.
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Now that the tallest inhabited skyscraper in the world (the Taipei 101 in Taiwan) has been built and shown off–will the worldwide pop culture assimilation of “The Towering Inferno” ultimately play out in real life someday? In Taiwan, it’s a safe bet to think they’ve taken all the precautions for a building that towers at well over 1,500 feet. It’s already said to be built to withstand earthquakes using a steel pendulum inside to keep it from swaying during a dramatic tremor. We’ll assume, too, with all that engineering brilliance (which they’ve been honored for)–that they wouldn’t have faulty wiring as The Glass Tower in “The Towering Inferno” blamed on how its fire started. No word, however, on how the Taipei 101 would fight a fire if one started on one of the top floors…that goes all the way up to a bag-breathing 101 floors as its title tells you.
“The Towering Inferno” may forever be known as Hollywood schlock–but it still stands alone as a film to be haunted over as well as well as be amused by in how we depict our fears playing out in high-rise buildings. For a lot of people, a 34-year-old film with an A-Z listing of familiar A and B actors still compels one to go stay at the independently-owned ground-floor motel in town when having to travel and get lodging.
And it wouldn’t hurt to try to produce a future erectile-dysfunctional Donald Trump in America who thinks it cool to create a luxury hotel on only three floors…
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