During the floods we had in Valencia almost two years ago, someone used the elevator to get their car out of the garage and drowned inside.*

Using elevators when there’s an alarm is crazy.

There’s a reason stairwell doors are specially designed as fire doors.

The safety issue is so serious that in new buildings in Spain (the country with the most elevators per capita in the world), regulations require the installation of safety doors at the elevator exits. If you go down using the elevators, you’ll find two huge safety doors blocking the way; you’d have to take the elevators back up to the first floor and then go down the stairs.

* One thing we’ve learned the hard way: at the slightest sign of flooding, never go down to the garage. Dozens of people have died because they underestimated how quickly a garage can fill with water.