Re: NYC 1975 CO Fire -- Supposed it Happened Today?

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... So telco tends to 'play the
> averages' on things like this, with fires or other disasters (New > Orleans and Katrina for example) occuring about once every fifteen > or twenty years. Although it is questionable if telco could have > done very much to protect their property and services in the Katrina > disaster, they most certainly could have mitigated their losses and > the disruption in service in Manhattan in 1975 and again in Hinsdale > in 1988.

I can't comment on Hinsdale other than that occured when it was no longer the Bell System and there was great pressure to cunt costs to meet competition.

As to Manhattan and other disasters, I'm not sure exactly what the phone company could've done any differently to prevent the fire or restoring service any faster short of extremely expensive duplication of facilities or very expensive safeguards. The Manhattan building was staffed, they smelled smoke and reported the fire. I don't know what fueled the fire (PVC cables?) that made it so severe or hard to knock down.

Thanks for posting that information (see below).

That devastation was lost in the coverage of 9/11. Part of that was due to the area being extensively evacuated and people not home or at work to use the phones that were down.

Indeed, it seems this destruction was worse than Feb 1975 -- there were

200,000 lines out, nearly twice as many as before. Further, there were substantial private line data circuits out.

I couldn't tell exactly the extent of damage to the building or the switchgear, but it seemed like a mess.

Work> I think the most prominent recent comparable telecom disaster in the

US also occurred in Manhattan, but is perhaps overlooked because it > was just a small part of a much larger disaster. I'm referring to the > Verizon facilities damaged during the September 11, 2001 terrorist > attacks. See: >
formatting link
and
formatting link
and
formatting link
for some reflections on how Verizon recovered from the loss of a > switching office that served hundreds of thousands of voice lines and > millions of data circuits.