RandyTravis' Blog

Thank God that somebody is going to get the elevators checked properly in the buildings in Decatur (and hopefully fixed right). The ones in the front part of the courthouse have dropped several inches after the doors open, then rise back up level with the floor. People trip getting on or off. They've gotten stuck between floors many times and the fire department had to be called to get people out of them. I have gotten off of them 4 or 5 times when they felt too full of people on the first floor. And, again, sometimes they would drop when they got very crowded. This has gone on for years. That 125% testing rule sounds like a great idea.

And the doors in the Maloof building elevators sometimes slam shut and sound like a jail door closing. That really makes you wonder if they're working right.

I sure hope that now they will get fixed and work right.

Does Ames have anything to do with the inspections of Gwinnett Medical Center? A patient stepped off the 8th floor a few months back with no car in the shaft and died. Has any connection to this situation been made?

Okay, I will try to find the newspapaer article
and forward it to you.

Randy, thanks for doing this story. I've personally not known of any problem as this, but it's certainly an important one which everyone should know about if they use elevators. We have an elevator in our building, but it is maintained properly.

Karen

I think jkw58 hit the nail on the head. From what I've heard from past employees DeKalb's maintenance department has a bad habit of always taking the lowest bids, and repairs take weeks or months that DeKalb employees used to do in a few days.

As for the elevator industry in general, I'm sure there are many fine and competent elevator technicians out there, and I thank them for making the elevators they work on safe. How often do you really hear about elevator accidents? Not very often at all.

The Callaway Building is one of the trouble spots we pointed out in our investigation. The state said the two elevators passed a new weight load safety test over the weekend. Sounds like there are still problems.

We're working on some other aspects to this investigation. Keep me posted here or directly at randy.travis@foxtv.com

Thanks

I have had a women trapped in an elevator at a building I was doing work at, I immediatly called the property manager and he called the elevator contractor and they were out there within 45 minutes; Does the department of labor actually have people on there staff that can test an elevator? How can they tell if it was done properly if they don't know how to do it? It appears that someone has been pencil whipping documents, and if they bring in a third party, whos to say they won't pay them to look the other way, the government today is so corrupt, you don't know who to trust anymore.

Dana Fowle would love to hear from you. Go to her blog. She just finished up another update on her dirty hotel glasses investigation.