Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.COM (05/09/88)
In my earlier posting, details were very sparce and I was unable to be
specific in describing the disaster which struck us here over the weekend.
I now have a more detailed accounting for the net --
An extra alarm fire broke out Sunday, May 8 at 5:30 PM in the Illinois Bell
Central Office, 120 North Lincoln Avenue, Hinsdale, Illinois. At the time
of the fire, the Chicago area, and the west suburbs in particular, were
experiencing a very bad electrical storm. There had been a great deal of
lightning; rain was quite heavy, and winds were about 40 miles per hour.
Fire Departments from 15 nearby communities battled the blaze before bringing
it under control at about 8:30 PM. The fire was officially struck at 11:30 PM
Sunday night. Deemed the worst disaster in the history of Illinois Bell, and
one of the worst disasters ever in the telephone industry, the fire virtually
gutted the two story building.
The Hinsdale central office is a *major* switching center for the west
suburban area. In addition to serving ten prefixes covering various
communities including Oak Brook, Westmont, Darien, Hinsdale and others,
the office housed the Directory Assistance Data Base for downstate Illinois;
it served as the communications apex for air traffic control between Ohare,
Midway, and the Aurora, IL aviation center; it was the headquarters for a
majority of the cellular phone service in the greater Chicago area; *and*
it handled long distance calls in and out of most of Dupage County, Will
County and southern Cook County.
*And the office is now almost gutted*
The reason for the fire has not been detirmined, but fire department officials
have reason to believe the building was struck by a tremendous bolt of
lightning during the worst of the electrical storm which was in progress when
the first fire alarms were called in at 5:30 PM.
The fire caused another problem: the emission of toxic fumes which required
the evacuation of several blocks of homes in the vicinity. These fumes came
from batteries described as 'highly toxic' which were stored in the premises
and a large amount of fiber optic cable. The Hinsdale office was very much
a fiber optic center in the area.
Because of the toxic release, at one point firemen working in the building
had to be called out, in the interest of their own safety, and as firemen
relieved each other working inside in ten to fifteen minute shifts, they
were required to strip to their underwear and be hosed down with a special
solution so that the contamination would not be carried elsewhere.
After the fire was first reported, Illinois Bell employees on duty at the
time followed company procedures by first notifying the Fire Department.
Others then began fighting the fire, and a few began a process known as
an emergency telephone tree, calling other employees and company management
at home to notify them of the circumstances. Each employee thus notified
was responsible for calling a few more employees.
Within about an hour, while the fire was raging at its worst, several dozen
employees had already gathered on location, waiting for a go ahead to begin
clean up and restoration work.
*But no one dreamed it would be nearly as bad as it was*
Although the fire was struck at 11:30 PM, fire officials would not permit
anyone to enter the building for several more hours, pending exhaustion of
the toxic fumes. Illinois Bell employees were allowed access to the building
beginning at 4:00 AM to survey the damage.
Most of Monday was spent merely bailing out the water and removing the
rubble from the fire. Emergency lighting was installed and cleaning crews
began scrubbing soot from the walls, ceilings and floors. The cleanup was
still in progress late Monday afternoon.
At this writing (12:50 AM Tuesday, May 10), Illinois Bell has not announced
any date that service will be restored. It is estimated that it will be
at least 4-5 days before *emergency* service is restored. Hinsdale, you
see, is also the main center for 911 services in over a dozen west suburban
communities.
Ordinarily in circumstances like this, the phone company will set up special
phones in public areas. They will often times be mobile or cellular type
instruments available for the public to use for emergency calls. But since
Hinsdale *is* the cellular center for Chicago, even this option is not
available.
When the first firemen arrived on the scene, heavy black smoke was pouring
out of all the windows on the first floor. By that time, employees were
evacuating after having given up on their own emergency proceedures.
What we are faced with now is a *major* traffic jam on the network in the
Chicago area. Long distance calls in and out of the area are very sluggish
in getting through. Directory Enquiry in downstate Illinois is only able
to handle about ten percent of the calls they are receiving, those being
requests that are being searched manually through paper directories on hand
in the communities affected.
Hinsdale was the major center for MCI/Sprint long distance also....and those
services are severely crippled in the area. Obviously, data transmission
lines and the like are dead.
About 40,000 subscribers, representing 100,000 residents are without phone
service for the indefinite future. In Hinsdale and the other communities
affected, the Police Departments have stationed patrol cars a few blocks
apart on the street, and residents have been told to go to the nearest
police car to report emergencies.
Illinois Bell has not announced -- as of Monday evening -- any schedule
of priorities for restoration of service. Jim Eibel, vice president of
operations for Illinois Bell said emergency phones would be set up within
a day or two, when crews were able to reroute at least limited traffic
through the LaGrange, IL center. Of equal importance of course is the
restoration of 911 service, and the restoration of long distance service.
Eibel said restoring service to the ten prefixes in the area, which would
return regular phone service to local residents would probably not occur
for 'several' days. Naturally, cellular service also has to be placed in
the table of priorities somewhere. About fifty percent of the cellular
service in the entire Chicago area is out right now due to the fire.
Other Bell companies around the nation have responded by dispatching
emergency crews to come to the aid of Illinois Bell, and these out of
town crews will remain on site for several weeks as needed. In addition,
while the fire was in progress, executives from MCI and Sprint met with
their counterparts from Illinois Bell on location and immediatly offered
their full assistance and cooperation during the period of turmoil we
will be facing for the next several weeks.
For up to the minute announcements during the next several days, it is
recommended that you call a special recorded announcement service for
company employees. Called the 'Illinois Bell Communicator', this recorded
announcement will be updated 4-5 times daily, and can be recieved by
dialing 312-368-8000, a number at IBT Chicago Headquarters Building.
It goes without saying on this forum that everyone is requested to
avoid making all but emergency calls into the Chicago west suburban area
for at least the next several days. And if your call is met with an
'all circuits busy' message, kindly refrain from repeated dialing attempts,
as this simply clogs the network even worse.
A further update will be posted here when I have news available.
The last fire to occur in a telephone center was in Manhattan a few years
ago. You may recall the resulting damage and confusion from that situation.
The last fire *in the Chicago area* occurred in the River Grove, IL central
office in 1946...then an all manual exchange. Unlike that fire, considered
bad at the time, the fire in Hinsdale this past weekend was many times worse,
since Hinsdale is responsible not only for its local calling area but so
many of the overall network services for the Chicago area.
Patrick Townson