wdc@athena.mit.edu (Bill Cattey) (03/15/89)
I hope that somewhere in all that money they are going to spend is an
allocation for a human being to be on-site 24 hours a day, and for
hard wired lines to police and fire from the central offices.
None of these features were mentioned in the plan, but seem to be the
things that would have really saved the day in Hinsdale if they had
been present.
From the 'desk' of _ /|
Bill (the) CATTey... \'o.O'
~(___)~ THSHVPPPOOO!
U ACH!
[Moderator's Note: Unfortunatly, no. Not a nickle for an employee to
be on the premises 24 hours per day. You are correct that it would be
one way to insure the Hinsdale tragedy was unlikely to occur again.
But Illinois Bell, in the persona of Mr. James Eibel -- in all candor,
a man I would have canned the day after the fire, since it was *his* technician
who chose to ignore the alarm; *his* supervisor who bungled the job in the
moments after the fire was discovered; and *his* decision that million dollar
switches don't need attendants at all times -- has decided to continue playing
it reckless. PT]lvc@cbnews.att.com (Lawrence V. Cipriani) (03/17/89)
> [Moderator's Note: Unfortunatly, no. Not a nickle for an employee to > be on the premises 24 hours per day ... Fire Eibel because ... > *his* decision that million dollar switches don't need attendants at > all times -- has decided to continue playing it reckless. PT] The decision that switching machines don't need attendants at all times was made many years ago in AT&T. The centralized operation administration and maintenance of switching machines saves phone companies millions of dollars every year. It isn't going to go away even with Hilsdale disaster. I wouldn't hold any one person responsible for that debacle, except the technician who ignored the initial alarms. I almost certain Eibel couldn't get a technician at every switch even if he wanted to. After divestiture many of the phone company operations and procedures went unchanged. They just make good economic sense, but that isn't to say there isn't room for improvement. By the way, some switches are literally impossible to have an attendant at since they are in underground sealed vaults. I speak only for myself, AT&T has nothing to do with this note. -- Larry Cipriani, att!cbnews!lvc or lvc@cbnews.att.com
silber@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Jeffrey Silber) (03/17/89)
The inability to shut off power in COs is apparantly not uncommon. During a
tour of our local NYNEX CO the foreman instructed us how to shut off the
incoming (power company) current, but said that there was no effective way
of shutting off the battery power, and no guarantee that even if everything
was done that the power was really off. Not a really good incentive for
firefighters to go charging ahead.
It seems to me that halon protection is the most logical for these sites,
and that would be the most cost-effective from society's view.
Jeffrey Silber
Lieut. Cayuga Heights F.D.
--
"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
--Sen. Everett Dirksen
Jeffrey A. Silber/silber@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu
Business Manager/Cornell Center for Theory & Simulation in Science &
Engineering