Re: Toronto bell canada central office fire

[Michael Dillon <michael () memra com>]

On Sun, 18 Jul 1999, David Lesher wrote:

>       Ready source of fire - tens of thousands of amps of short
>       circuit current for the taking;

And lots and lots of exposed thick copper waiting for a tool to be dropped
in the wrong place.

>       Explosion potential -- both from the H2 gas and just steam
>       from a short.

And no shielding in place that would lessen or direct the force of an
explosion.

>       Goodly quantities of acid and lead to fly/spill/etc. While
>       the acid is not instantly lethal, and can be mitigated
>       readily [LOTS of water ASAP]; the cleanup after & 2nd
>       order effects are significant...

Also no attempts made to contain the acid either in the air or on the
floor. How far will it drip and trickle?

> In decades past, the only place with a 2000 A-H -48v string was
> a Telephone Company building, with Telephone Company rules and
> craft people. Much as I despised dealing with them; they had a
> Book and followed it. They wrote their Book after attending the
> School of Hard Knocks. It showed.

ISO 9000 processes could lead more folks to this space.

> not having the worshiped, or maybe even seen, the Book.

I wonder if my impressions are warped since I've only seen CLEC facilities
and I have no idea if any of them saw the Book.

> In short, This Stuff Will Kill You, and needs a specialized
> designer as much as your billing code and java pages do....
> and such are not found in the Yellow Pages. Beware.

But when you tell the designer that you have just leased the 5th floor of
an office highrise for your facility, you are limiting what they can do
for you. 

--
Michael Dillon                 -               E-mail: michael () memra com
Check the website for my Internet World articles -  http://www.memra.com