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The Katrina Hatch
This Emergency Attic Egress System as seen here (pic1)installs
into the opening and sets flat on the roof deck and is then
covered over with the roofing material.(pic2) This design (patent
pending) allows the escape hatch to be hidden from the outside
and making it maintenance free.
There is no battery to change and no tank to fill. It will not be
blown off by the wind and it needs no caulk. It will not leak. Once
installed it will last as long as the house and always be ready to
use. This system is truly maintenance free and secure.
Made with a 1/8" steel frame that mounts to the
roof top into the joist with screws. The 3/4”
plywood hatch lid is less than a 1/8" above the
roof decking to make it invisible to others from the outside.
Pic 3 & 4 show what it would look like installed in a roof.
The bright red color makes it easy to find from the inside.(pic5)
The hatch works with almost any roof type flat,
hip, gable, composition, architectural, tile, bry and more.
Roof hatches have been around for years, but are
not nice to look at and need Maintenance if you have ever had
problems with vent pipes leaking,
sky lights and that leaking
fire place you know the
results of things that stick through
the roof. This unit has taken care
of all that.
The Attic Egress hatch is very simple to use.
There are no keyed or combination locks installed on this unit,
this way you don't have to keep up with a number or a key. The
hatch door is locked in placed with two 3/8 steel pull pins and two
5/16 steel pull pins on the hinges.
To deploy most people will be able to simply pull
the two yellow pull pins and pull open the hatch.
This may not work for all, so attached to the hatch
is a cutter that is inserted in the gap between the
red and black frame. Use the cutter to cut or just
perforate the roofing materials to help open hatch. The hatch
door opens inward so it will not be blocked by a tree branch, light
wires or other storm debris and to make opening it very easy.
(pic 7&8) It is my intent that if you find a need to open this hatch.
IT WILL OPEN!
After deployment the hatch is designed to work
with escape chain ladders to allow egress
to the ground.
By removing the roofing material from the outer
door this will reveal a bright red top that can be
seen from 100's of yards away to signal a need
for assistance.(pic9)
Our patent applications was filed in
October 2005
and is being handled by
Jim Bushman
BROWNING BUSHMAN P.C.
Houston, Texas
Contact US
into the opening and sets flat on the roof deck and is then
covered over with the roofing material.(pic2) This design (patent
pending) allows the escape hatch to be hidden from the outside
and making it maintenance free.
There is no battery to change and no tank to fill. It will not be
blown off by the wind and it needs no caulk. It will not leak. Once
installed it will last as long as the house and always be ready to
use. This system is truly maintenance free and secure.
Made with a 1/8" steel frame that mounts to the
roof top into the joist with screws. The 3/4”
plywood hatch lid is less than a 1/8" above the
roof decking to make it invisible to others from the outside.
Pic 3 & 4 show what it would look like installed in a roof.
The bright red color makes it easy to find from the inside.(pic5)
The hatch works with almost any roof type flat,
hip, gable, composition, architectural, tile, bry and more.
Roof hatches have been around for years, but are
not nice to look at and need Maintenance if you have ever had
problems with vent pipes leaking,
sky lights and that leaking
fire place you know the
results of things that stick through
the roof. This unit has taken care
of all that.
The Attic Egress hatch is very simple to use.
There are no keyed or combination locks installed on this unit,
this way you don't have to keep up with a number or a key. The
hatch door is locked in placed with two 3/8 steel pull pins and two
5/16 steel pull pins on the hinges.
To deploy most people will be able to simply pull
the two yellow pull pins and pull open the hatch.
This may not work for all, so attached to the hatch
is a cutter that is inserted in the gap between the
red and black frame. Use the cutter to cut or just
perforate the roofing materials to help open hatch. The hatch
door opens inward so it will not be blocked by a tree branch, light
wires or other storm debris and to make opening it very easy.
(pic 7&8) It is my intent that if you find a need to open this hatch.
IT WILL OPEN!
After deployment the hatch is designed to work
with escape chain ladders to allow egress
to the ground.
By removing the roofing material from the outer
door this will reveal a bright red top that can be
seen from 100's of yards away to signal a need
for assistance.(pic9)
Our patent applications was filed in
October 2005
and is being handled by
Jim Bushman
BROWNING BUSHMAN P.C.
Houston, Texas
Contact US
Concealed Emergency Attic Egress System
When you can't go out, you must go up.
Thanks to Dave at
www.ybarbo.com
www.ybarbo.com
Click to see larger pictures
Think you can swim?
You might be the meanest paddler in the pool.But can you swim hurricane-
style?
Can you swim "out dee howse?" As we say in the "lower nine," where the
flood began? And remember, there´s a reason it´s called "lower."
Eight feet of water´s nothing if it´s in a swimming pool.
But when we swim "hurricane style," it´s in your living room.
Could you hold your breath long enough to find some way out of your
home? Could you open your front door if it´s underwater, and the outdoors
is also underwater? If your door is swollen shut from rain?
Or blocked underwater by the living room sofa pressing upside down and
sideways against it?
What if all your appliances—TVs, stereos, computers, big screens, and all
the junk that goes with these, along with all your chairs, your mattress, your
boxspring, your bookcases, and all your stuff, is underwater, or too
waterlogged and heavy to be moved out your way, and presses up against
every door and every window. And bobbing around in the inch or two of
airspace you might have is every lamp, cup, garbage can, every plastic
anything you own, boxes, shoes, your pillows and comforters and top and
bottom sheets, …amazing, isn´t it, what floats and what doesn´t? And now
add in a tangle of live wires, sparking, and gas and propane lines, leaking.
How do you break a window underwater?
It´s harder than you think. And there´s no Hollywood ending.You´d likely die
trying.
Then there´s the attic.
Heading to your attic means your house is almost completely underwater.
Could you swim, probably in total darkness, through yoursmall attic
opening, which is actually a ceiling?
Could you liftyourself up there, even if you could get the attic door open?
And what if the water doesn´t stop rising?
So many people in Hurricanes Betsy and Camille died this way.
If you remembered these infamous storms, were you "smart" enough to
carry up a hatchet along with your ice chest when you headed up "higher?"
In the early hours of Sunday´s Katrina evacuation, radio stations broadcast
hundreds of warnings to leave the house by whatever means possible.
They warned people not to go to their attics, but if they did, to bring with them
a hatchet or "the tools you´ll need" to break out of the attic to the roof.
Many elected to "ride out the storm" this way.
But try it first. Before the next big storm. Practice finding a clear, level place
in your attic, remembering that many attics have no real floors, but are
ceiling frames resting above plaster or sheetrock. Squat or lie on your back,
because most folks are too tall to stand up in attics. Then, pick up your
hatchet and start chopping a hole from the inside to the outside of your
roof—through attic insulation, tar paper, roof tiles—while the rising
floodwaters that have deluged your living room now lick at your hair, your
face, your ears and eyes and nose. Fiberglass from insulation tears at your
eyes, nose, and skin. Keep swinging as all the stuff you´ve squirreled away
in your attic for years and years bumps and bobs around you. And if the
storm´s still going, the wind will howl and the rain will pelt you as you flail
away.
Try doing this in total, utter darkness, broken only by dangerous electrical
sparks that could easily ignite and engulf you by fire in whatever dry place
you have left.
Still ready to ride out the storm?
Imagine all this, but add in your spouse, your children, your pet dog and cat
and the parakeets, your nieces, nephews, and neighbors in the attic
alongside you, screaming. And there´s no Hollywood ending.
Still ready to ride out the storm?
It´s almost sacrilegious to say so, but now try chopping a hole in your roof
from the inside out while drunk or "high." This is how some Camille victims
died—in "Hurricane parties" on the Gulf Coast.
If you´re lucky, your attic will have a small ventilation hole usually covered by
wooden slats designed to keep squirrels and burglars out.If you can find it,
and break it open, and then fit through it, you´ll be halfway home. But most
folks don´t even know where their attic opening is. And even if they make it
out, it gets dicey.
If the waters are high, you can just swim out. But otherwise, you´ll have to
somehow get to your rooftop from there, or jump to the street below.
Still ready to ride out the storm?
The rescue squad´s picking you up in a day or so. But only after all the living
are accounted for.
The column was written by Sarah Whalen it reflects her humor and
perspectives and addresses a very important issue. It is our hope that
more individuals take the killer storms more seriously as some wonderful
people obviously failed to survive.
You might be the meanest paddler in the pool.But can you swim hurricane-
style?
Can you swim "out dee howse?" As we say in the "lower nine," where the
flood began? And remember, there´s a reason it´s called "lower."
Eight feet of water´s nothing if it´s in a swimming pool.
But when we swim "hurricane style," it´s in your living room.
Could you hold your breath long enough to find some way out of your
home? Could you open your front door if it´s underwater, and the outdoors
is also underwater? If your door is swollen shut from rain?
Or blocked underwater by the living room sofa pressing upside down and
sideways against it?
What if all your appliances—TVs, stereos, computers, big screens, and all
the junk that goes with these, along with all your chairs, your mattress, your
boxspring, your bookcases, and all your stuff, is underwater, or too
waterlogged and heavy to be moved out your way, and presses up against
every door and every window. And bobbing around in the inch or two of
airspace you might have is every lamp, cup, garbage can, every plastic
anything you own, boxes, shoes, your pillows and comforters and top and
bottom sheets, …amazing, isn´t it, what floats and what doesn´t? And now
add in a tangle of live wires, sparking, and gas and propane lines, leaking.
How do you break a window underwater?
It´s harder than you think. And there´s no Hollywood ending.You´d likely die
trying.
Then there´s the attic.
Heading to your attic means your house is almost completely underwater.
Could you swim, probably in total darkness, through yoursmall attic
opening, which is actually a ceiling?
Could you liftyourself up there, even if you could get the attic door open?
And what if the water doesn´t stop rising?
So many people in Hurricanes Betsy and Camille died this way.
If you remembered these infamous storms, were you "smart" enough to
carry up a hatchet along with your ice chest when you headed up "higher?"
In the early hours of Sunday´s Katrina evacuation, radio stations broadcast
hundreds of warnings to leave the house by whatever means possible.
They warned people not to go to their attics, but if they did, to bring with them
a hatchet or "the tools you´ll need" to break out of the attic to the roof.
Many elected to "ride out the storm" this way.
But try it first. Before the next big storm. Practice finding a clear, level place
in your attic, remembering that many attics have no real floors, but are
ceiling frames resting above plaster or sheetrock. Squat or lie on your back,
because most folks are too tall to stand up in attics. Then, pick up your
hatchet and start chopping a hole from the inside to the outside of your
roof—through attic insulation, tar paper, roof tiles—while the rising
floodwaters that have deluged your living room now lick at your hair, your
face, your ears and eyes and nose. Fiberglass from insulation tears at your
eyes, nose, and skin. Keep swinging as all the stuff you´ve squirreled away
in your attic for years and years bumps and bobs around you. And if the
storm´s still going, the wind will howl and the rain will pelt you as you flail
away.
Try doing this in total, utter darkness, broken only by dangerous electrical
sparks that could easily ignite and engulf you by fire in whatever dry place
you have left.
Still ready to ride out the storm?
Imagine all this, but add in your spouse, your children, your pet dog and cat
and the parakeets, your nieces, nephews, and neighbors in the attic
alongside you, screaming. And there´s no Hollywood ending.
Still ready to ride out the storm?
It´s almost sacrilegious to say so, but now try chopping a hole in your roof
from the inside out while drunk or "high." This is how some Camille victims
died—in "Hurricane parties" on the Gulf Coast.
If you´re lucky, your attic will have a small ventilation hole usually covered by
wooden slats designed to keep squirrels and burglars out.If you can find it,
and break it open, and then fit through it, you´ll be halfway home. But most
folks don´t even know where their attic opening is. And even if they make it
out, it gets dicey.
If the waters are high, you can just swim out. But otherwise, you´ll have to
somehow get to your rooftop from there, or jump to the street below.
Still ready to ride out the storm?
The rescue squad´s picking you up in a day or so. But only after all the living
are accounted for.
The column was written by Sarah Whalen it reflects her humor and
perspectives and addresses a very important issue. It is our hope that
more individuals take the killer storms more seriously as some wonderful
people obviously failed to survive.