By Ivo Henfling

Is it scary to live in a high rise building in Costa Rica? I was just in Panama City for a week (I will write more about this visit in the next AE newsletter) and looking at all those high buildings around me, I asked myself what would happen in case of an emergency in any of these highrises.

The highest buildings in Escazu and Sabana Park are 12 stories high I believe. Many of the buildings in Panama City show cracks everywhere, the buildings in Costa Rica are well built against eartquakes, as the building codes take care of this and they are well controlled on that. In Costa Rica, realtors tend to call these structures highrise buildings but many of you just call them condos.

Most high buildings have gone through a 6.5 on the scale of Richter. Wat will happen in case of a fire? Some buildings, like Condado del Country and Condado de Baviera have two fire escapes on the extremes of the building. So if you can't get out on one side, you can on the other. But many of my clients won't have the knees in good enough shape to make it 6 or 8 stories down.

Escape Rescue Systems in Paramus, new Jersey came up with this incredible rescue system that I think you should all see (even though if we will never see it implemented in condos in Costa Rica or in Panama City).

Initiated in September 2002 by a group of highly experienced entrepreneurs, Escape Rescue Systems Inc. has developed an innovative system which revolutionizes the evacuation of tenants from high-rise buildings, and enables the fast and safe transportation of fire and rescue forces to the focus of an emergency. Other existing and competing solutions do not offer comparable effectiveness. Read more about it on their website but check out this video that tell you exactly how innovative and incredibly well done their system is.

In October 2005, Escape won US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Designation as a Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology (QATT) under the SAFETY act.

Let's hope some condo developer in Costa Rica real estate will see this system and I can assure you that GoDutch Realty will advertise their condos like crazy.

Before you buy a condo apartment in Costa Rica, make sure you ask your preferred GoDutch realtor about these issues.

Ivo Henfling, your Escazu and Santa Ana real estate Specialist

GoDutch Realty, Costa Rica

See the YouTube video on this elevator in comments below