Evacuation Chairs Australia

DES MOINES (AP) - State officials are blaming the Capitol's facility manager, Mark Willemssen, for not installing special devices that would have helped handicapped people evacuate the building during a fire alarm Wednesday.

The Capitol received five Evac-Chairs two years ago, but the devices were in the attic when the alarm sounded, leaving at least one handicapped person stranded on an upper floor.

The chairs - which look like a cross between a dolly and a fold-up camp chair atop wheels - are designed to lower people down steps.

They were given to Willemssen for installation, but he stored them because he questioned whether they would work properly on the Capitol's steep, narrow staircases.

Other state officials dispute his reasoning, including Gov. Tom Vilsack's spokeswoman Jennifer Mullin and Mollie Anderson, the director of the Department of Administrative Services. Both said Willemssen refused to install the chairs because he didn't like the way they looked.

Willemssen denied the allegations. He said he was waiting for administrative services to offer a safer solution. Under state code, Anderson's department is responsible for the Capitol.

Anderson said her department was waiting for Willemssen to offer an alternative on how to mount the devices near stairwells to the Legislature's taste.

The evacuation was a false alarm, but Rep. Mark Kuhn, D-Charles City, called for a review of evacuation procedures after he was stranded on an upper floor in his wheelchair during the alarm.

Kuhn wasn't allowed to use the elevators, and he couldn't walk down two stories. Several hours after the alarm, Evac-Chairs were placed near the coat rooms of the House and Senate.