Back to school- did you feel it?

Hello everyone,

Well the first week of classes is over and we are celebrating with a holiday weekend. Nothing like easing into the new semester!

Did you feel the any of the earthquakes this week? I was in my office on campus Wednesday and felt the 4.1 that occurred in Yorba Linda. I was talking with a student when we heard a bit of a bang, the walls and ceiling shook and then we experienced some slight rolling. Of course everyone wanted to continue just going about their business. In fact some classrooms didn’t even evacuate! 

 

I was at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg MD last May, which is also home to FEMA. While I was there we were evacuated into the basement due to a Tornado Warning. The second Tornado warning, an hour or so later, we stayed above ground, away from the windows (but close enough to look out). The third time, about 7 pm that evening, we moved our beer from the glass walled “garden room” into the masonry pool hall. The fourth time, 11 pm, - we had moved back into the bar- we decided to stay where we were and watch the FEMA Trailers through the glass walls, agreeing that if they flew away we would move. And these were some of the highest trained emergency responders in the country, as well as your humble professor. Embarrassing but true.  Actually I kept my eye on both the FEMA trailers for lift-off and the graveyard next door for…movement. There was lots of lightning and would have been a perfect setting for some zombie action. Just saying. Risks.

 

We had two cohorts that took shelter for each alarm. They told us they had seen to many victims who said “If only….”, and they didn’t want to be in that position.

The attitude “it won’t happen to me” is persistent in our culture. We are very good at giving up responsibility for our own safety and taking risks based upon false assumptions, “Chimpanzees make awesome pets.”;  “Google Navigator doesn’t make mistakes.” “Physics does not apply to fire apparatus or school busses” ”Safety restraints on amusement rides are designed to hold everyone.” “Cats like babies.”   

I was on an airport shuttle when two women, both Professors from a college in Oklahoma entered the van and settled in. One of the ladies turned to the other and said “Mary, be sure to buckle your seatbelt”

“Um, ok, why?”  I kid you not, that was Mary’s response. 

I expected her answer to be “the laws of physics are different in California”, which would have made sense. I would have accepted “because your ricocheting body, in the event of a bad thing, would hurt me- and that odd woman with the dropped jaw sitting behind us and eavesdropping on our conversation.” It was neither.

“Because they have very strict seat belt laws here.”  was her reply.  (“And excellent brain surgeons” was what I thought in my head, because I am quietly sarcastic like that.)

Anyway, my point is that we interpret risk is a little bit warped.  Which is more dangerous- Swimming Poos or Guns? Drunk driving or drunk walking?

 

 

The book (and movie) Freakanomics does a good job of illustrating this. (Let me know if you want to read the book or watch the movie for extra credit

Why do you think that is?

The first week of school is always busy and this semester is no exception.

Class enrollment is down, believe it or not. That means smaller class sizes for you. The college has also added new class sections, full semester and 8-week classes, that do not appear on the printed schedule. If you or someone you know need more units take a look online. 

I have heard that the first Physical Ability Test in September has a lot of openings. This is a really good opportunity to a) get it done if you are finishing your core classes or b) give it a try to find out where you are currently performing at.

There are also still openings in FAC 008B the Physical Ability preparation class. It is an 8 week class that meets 2 hrs each week (Wed night or Friday morning) at the Central Net Training Ground (behind the HBFD station on Gothard between Talbert & Ellis). It is only .3 units, so it is cheap. Get added Tuesday (call the fire tech office) and you can work out Wednesday!

If you are currently volunteering your time, as an explorer, CERT member, or – whatever- get with our Service Learning Program and receive recognition for you work. Participants receive a Presidential Certificate for 100 hours of community service.

The Fire Tech Club will be meeting in room W101 on Tues, Sept 4 at 3:00 pm. We will be registering members, selecting future meeting times and dates, nominating leadership roles, discussing the club constitution and selecting projects and goals for the semester.

Leadership roles that need to be filled include President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Publicist; Interclub Council Representative; Interclub Council Representative Alternate; Project managers. Projects already under consideration include the Hero’s to the Top stair climb, Zombie Run, Small group EMT tutoring, Small Group Cross Fit Training, “Mini-Biddle” relay, movie night, resume workshop, mock oral board.

We will also have club T-Shirts & shorts ($15 each) as well as wristbands ($2) for sale.

 If you can’t make the meeting you can sign up in the Fire Tech Office. Members need to have a current Student Services sticker ($5).

I will be using this blog to share with you my thoughts and observations as we move through the semester. At least once a week, a new post will be added. These posts will include a look at what has been happening at Santa Ana College, opportunities and “breaking news”, current events, real stories, as well as your questions and comments answered.  

You can also find me at www.twitter.com/fireprevgeek and www.facebook.com/firepreventiongeek.

I am dedicated to helping you, our Fire Tech students, to understand more about what we do… and when I can, helping your experience at Santa Ana College be as rewarding as possible.

I hope you enjoy it.     

Cheers

 

President Martinez needs to be alarmed about fire system - Views

President Martinez needs to be alarmed about fire system - Views
As classes started last week, Santa Ana College still did not have a fully functional alarm system. Once again our students and faculty study and work in a facility where there is a potential for disaster.
Since last year when el Don brought the problem to the public’s attention, steps have been taken to fix the dilapidated system, and progress has been made. However, in July, a contractor was hired to bring SAC up to code and into the 21st century was fired before completing the job.
We now have an alarm system that will sound locally in all buildings except for the library, which is again on fire watch.
Nealley Library — housing an abundance of texts, periodicals and valuable documents that assist students in enriching their education — is susceptible to destruction. The fire watch system is dependent on an on duty observer to be present if a fire were to ignite.
Moreover, the now functioning alarms are not connected to campus safety or to the local fire department. In a situation where every second counts we are losing those moments to on some Johnny- on-the-spot to alert higher-ups of a serious problem.
In a year where more than 30,000 students are enrolled and have entrusted their future and safety to this institution, most are unaware of its structural inadequacies. So now we wait and hope for the best.
A project scheduled for completion this summer is now up for bid again. So, we just might have a new contractor by October, work just might begin two weeks later and it could be finished by April 2009. That, however, is a lot of ifs and buts.
We attend this place of higher learning for an education and hope of a better future. All we ask of our president and her staff is to make SAC a safe place. After all, we have been told that SAC is a family.
We urge President Martinez to complete the job quickly and properly as if it were
her own home and her own family were occupying it.
As long as all goes well and the fire alarm system is in place then this administration might be remembered for more than fire alarms. If the unthinkable were to happen they could be branded by a far worse moniker.

Officials faulted for Santa Ana College fire alarms problems

Officials faulted for Santa Ana College fire alarms problems - Los Angeles Times
Broken devices plagued the campus for two years because of miscommunication, failure to declare an emergency and the belief that a new system would soon be installed, a report finds.

Broken fire alarms at nearly a dozen buildings at Santa Ana College went unrepaired for more than two years because of miscommunication and a can't-someone-else-do-it mentality, and because officials did not declare an emergency to fix the antiquated system, an investigation by a law firm found.

"Everybody thought it was someone else's responsibility," said Eddie Hernandez, chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District.

The investigation was performed by Liebert Cassidy Whitmore of Los Angeles at Hernandez's request after widespread problems that placed thousands of students, faculty and staff in potential danger became public in October.

The faulty alarms had been documented in inspections in 2005 and 2006, but not repaired. The findings of the investigation were released to The Times this week.

Six entire buildings -- including the gym, fine arts building and library -- had no working fire alarms at various times over two years. At least three other buildings had some that worked. Some alarms had broken handles, others did not ring, and at least one was turned off because it would not stop sounding.

Campus and district officials put off repairs because they thought a new system was coming soon, according to the report.

"There was a feeling of 'Why fix these things if they're going to be replaced?' " said John Hanna, a community college district board member. "But that's no excuse."

Officials made another major mistake by not starting a fire watch when they first learned alarms were broken, Hernandez said, which left buildings unmonitored by human or machine.

Meanwhile, officials used the $400,000 in state money that had been earmarked to replace the system to paint and waterproof the exteriors of some of the same buildings that lacked working alarms.

The college's safety committee disbanded several years ago, cutting off one avenue through which the problems could have been reported to a higher level.

If the district board had been notified of the problem immediately, it could have drafted an emergency resolution that could have bypassed the lengthy bidding process and promptly fixed the alarms, according to the report.

That's what the board did once news of the broken fire alarms reached board members in October and the campus newspaper El Don wrote a story about the lapses.

The board acted swiftly, calling an emergency meeting, instituting a 24-hour fire watch and fast-tracking repairs for the aging system.

Less than two months later, the old system was restored to working order.

This month, the board is scheduled to approve a contractor to install a new fire alarm and public address system. That system, at a cost of about $1 million, should be in operation by the end of the year.

Liebert Cassidy Whitmore's report portrays a complicated web of campus and district bureaucracy, with at least six officials passing around information about the broken alarms for two years but taking little action.

For nearly three years before the problem became public, campus and district officials drafted and revised plans to replace the entire system but did not send forward a proposal to repair the existing one, district spokeswoman Laurie Weidner said. "We wanted to make sure we made the right investment," she said. "We don't take the expenditure of public funds lightly."

Santa Ana College President Erlinda Martinez knew the alarms were malfunctioning to some extent, asking in August 2007 for a faulty alarm -- which buzzed constantly -- outside her temporary office to be silenced.

"She had a very stressful day and just wanted the buzzer to be shut off," according to the report.

Martinez has said she did not learn of the broken alarms until inspectors brought the problem to the college's attention in October.

The investigation narrowed in on six officials. At the college: Bruce Bromberger, plant manager; and Noemi Kanouse, vice president of administrative services. At the district: James Wooley, safety and security supervisor; Al Chin, director of safety and security; Don Maus, environmental and safety services manager; and Bob Brown, director of construction and support services, who retired in 2006.

All six were apparently cited in the report for not fulfilling their responsibilities regarding the fire alarms, though how they erred is undetermined because district authorities blacked out names when referring to mistakes they made.

The district also took disciplinary action against those faulted by the report.

Bromberger, who was responsible for the maintenance and repair of fire alarms at the college, resigned in February.

Chin, who is responsible for fire alarm systems at the district and college and communications about safety, was suspended for two weeks without pay.

Kanouse, responsible for facilities maintenance at the college, was transferred to serve as vice chancellor at the district and given a pay cut.

Three other officials received letters of reprimand but kept their jobs.

In reaction to the fire alarm problem, Santa Ana College has reconvened its safety committee, and the district board has formed its own counterpart.

"Thank God no one was hurt and we didn't have to pay the price," Hanna said. "But there were mistakes made. Administrators have been chastised and will see more clearly now. The silver lining is that out of this will come a safer campus."

tony.barboza@latimes.com

Oops! Alarm Was Off in Building Where Fire Injured 33

Alarm Was Off in Building Where Fire Injured 33 - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog

Even though the alarm wasn't required by code to be installed, once installed, it is REQUIRED to work.

An early-morning blaze in a stationery store led to the evacuation of tenants from a luxury apartment building at 200 East 72nd Street on Thursday, the Fire Department said. Thirty-three people — 19 firefighters and 14 residents — were injured. One firefighter was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, fofficials said. The other injuries were less severe.

Officials said the building’s fire alarm was out of service for repairs at the time of the fire. They said the local fire company, Ladder 16, had issued a violation order for a problem with the alarm system on Jan. 30, and the owner was in the process of fixing the system at the time of the fire. The officials did not know the nature of the original problem on Thursday afternoon. Violation orders are typically written by local fire companies and, because they are handled on a case-by-case basis, there is no fixed deadline for repairs to be made, fire officials said.

The Fire Department said an alarm was not required for the 35-story building, which contains fire-resistant construction materials, although once a fire alarm is installed it is required to be properly maintained.

The department said it received a report of a fire at about 5:10 a.m. Ultimately, 145 firefighters responded to combat the blaze, which was under control at 6:51 a.m., officials said.
The fire was contained to the one store, State News, on the ground floor, the department said. The cause remains under investigation. According to the city’s Finance Department, the building is owned by 72nd Street Associates.

Student Paper's Fire-Alarm Article Leads Santa Ana College to Begin Hourly Patrols

Student Paper's Fire-Alarm Article Leads Santa Ana College to Begin Hourly Patrols - Chronicle.com

Student Paper's Fire-Alarm Article Leads Santa Ana College to Begin Hourly Patrols
Santa Ana College has begun hourly fire patrols in seven buildings because their fire alarms are not working — and in some cases have been broken since 2005, according to the Orange County Register.

Problems with the alarms were revealed last week by the community college’s student newspaper, El Don. Subsequently the board of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, of which the college is a part, met in emergency session to begin the process of buying a new central alarm system for the campus. In the meantime, the college is seeking parts to repair the existing alarm systems in individual buildings. Repairs are expected to take about a month.

El Don reported that alarms in some buildings had been switched to a “silent” mode, rather than getting needed repairs, and that in the gym alarms were not working and water lines leading to fire hoses had been disconnected. College officials said the general counsel’s office had begun an investigation aimed at finding out who is to blame for the alarm failures.

But why stop there???

Fire alarms broken at Santa Ana College: Some officials knew of problem for two years.

SANTA ANA - Fire alarms are not working at seven buildings at Santa Ana College as part of a longstanding problem that was known but not addressed, officials confirmed this week.

Until the alarms are fixed, the buildings are on manual "fire watch" during which a security guard manually patrols looking for problems at least once an hour while people are in the buildings.

College trustees were not told about the broken alarms which in some cases date back to 2005 and originally involved as many as 11 buildings, said John Hanna, president of the board of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, which operates the college.

"We're furious about this," Hanna said. "People in management were informed and nothing was done."

The seven buildings on manual fire watch are the Cook Gym, Hammond Hall, Phillips Hall, the Library, and the Administration, Fine Arts, and Security buildings, officials said.

The issue became public this week only after the El Don college newspaper published an investigative story about the system. The district board held an emergency meeting Tuesday night to approve a request for bids for a new alarm system which could take as much as two years to install.

Meanwhile, parts are being sought to fix the antiquated, standalone, bell-type fire alarms and they should all be fixed in about a month, officials said.

"Everything will be functional within the next 20 to 30 days," college President Erlinda Martinez said. "Each building will have 100 percent of its alarms functioning."

Martinez said she only found out about the problem "a few weeks ago" during a meeting of the campus facilities committee.

The problems came to light in 2005 and 2006 inspection reports, but there are no records that anything was ever done with the information. Campus safety officials told the El Don campus newspaper they had reported the problems but repairs were not made.

Minutes from previous facility committee meetings over the last two years do not show any mention of problems with fire alarms, despite written reports about them.

In some cases, problems with the bells ringing caused officials to simply disable them instead of repairing them.

A May 2006 inspection report shows not only rusted and non-working alarms, but also many panels that had dead batteries and other routine maintenance that had not been performed.

The El Don reported that alarms in two buildings had been switched to "silent mode" rather than having been repaired.

The paper also reported that alarms inside Cook Gymnasium, scene of large athletic events attended by hundreds, are not working and its fire hoses were disconnected from water lines.

An investigation by the college's general counsel's office is underway to determine what happened and who is at fault, officials said.

The college had money to make the repairs from hundreds of millions in bond money that the district had acquired for building construction and renovations. Thirty million dollars of that pool was used to build a new sheriff's academy that recently opened.

The problem seemed to have been related to a decision to replace the standalone ringing alarm bells with a new technology that will allow all the buildings to be connected to a central panel in the campus security building.

Instead of repairing broken alarms, campus staff apparently did nothing because of plans to install the new system. However, no bid requests ever went out for the new system until this week, Hanna said.

"It boggles the mind why that wasn't done," Hanna said. "Had someone come and asked us for money to get that done, we would have given it to them."

Santiago Canyon College, also operated by the same district, used deferred maintenance funding to repair its alarm system in 2005 and 2006, Hanna said.

Even in the October facilities meeting in which the issue came to light, Hanna said no mention was made of the broken alarms until a concerned faculty member brought it up.

Martinez said that the college has hired Pyro-Comm of Huntington Beach to make temporary repairs on the standalone system and will seek bids to install a modern system called "Notifier."

It is against state law for classroom buildings to not have working fire alarms.

Santa Ana Fire Marshal Lori Smith said the city is aware of the problem and that the college voluntarily proposed the plan to have a security officer patrol buildings hourly whenever students are present.

"They are under notice to repair the existing system and get it working," Smith said.

Martinez said that college officials are also looking into reports there may be problems with sprinkler systems and water hydrant pressure. "We are following up on everything that was brought up," she said.

But wait! There is more!

Faulty fire alarms at Santa Ana College put thousands at potential risk:

The alarms have been broken since 2005, according to contractor reports. 'Something's rotten, trustee board president said, 'and we're going to find out about it.'
Seven buildings at Santa Ana College, including the administration offices and the library, have faulty fire alarms, placing thousands of students, faculty and staff in potential danger.

The alarms have been broken since at least June 2005, according to reports given to the school at that time by a contractor the college hired. Some have broken handles, others do not ring, and at least one was turned off because it would not stop sounding.

The Rancho Santiago Community College District has hired a law firm to find out why nothing was done for more than two years after reports documented the problems.

"It is an unacceptable practice to compromise the safety of our students or visitors," said Board of Trustees President John Hanna, who called an emergency meeting Tuesday for trustees to pass a resolution to repair the alarms. "Inspectors don't issue reports just for the fun of doing it. Somebody knew about this and made a conscious decision not to do anything about it. Clearly something's rotten in Denmark, and we're going to find out about it."

Inspections completed in 2005 and 2006 revealed widespread problems with the college's 1960s equipment, citing several buildings that lacked working fire alarms.

In some of those cases, campus security would not have known if there were a fire because the system makes noise only in the building where the alarm is pulled and does not alert authorities. The campus security building is one of those where the alarms don't work.

The college district in 2003 earmarked $400,000 in state maintenance funds to go toward replacing Santa Ana's nearly obsolete fire alarm system, but four years later, the overhaul has not been started.

The problems came to the attention of top district officials last month. Short-term repairs approved at the board meeting, expected to cost $68,000, should be completed in about a month. Meanwhile, security guards at the college have started a fire-watch program and hourly are patrolling buildings without alarm coverage. Other buildings without working alarms include the gym, the fine-arts building and the theater.

Three portable classrooms also had broken alarms, but they recently were fixed.

"I'm not sure whether it was a communication thing, a process thing, or an individual person thing," district Chancellor Eddie Hernandez said. "This should not have taken this length of time to solve it. There are plenty of people in retrospect that dropped the ball." Santa Ana Fire Department officials, who annually review the college for fire code violations, do not inspect fire alarms but rely on the college to hire a contractor to ensure they are working.

The college's fire alarms date to about 1966, making replacement parts nearly impossible to find, according to a contractor's report this month.

Officials said the district will replace the old alarm system with one that will notify security staff of fires and include loudspeakers and strobe lights.

It could take as long as two years before the new system, expected to cost between $1.5 and $2 million, is installed.

Santa Ana College President Erlinda Martinez said she did not learn of the broken fire alarms until inspectors brought it to the college's attention again last month. She declined to state which college officials had known about the broken alarms in 2005, saying only that reports about the alarms "didn't rise to the level to where we took action."

Hernandez , the district chancellor, said he was certain some school administrators knew about the problem. "This is a classic case of something falling through the cracks, but safety should come to the top of everyone's list."

Santiago Canyon College, which is part of the same community college district, finished replacing its alarm system in 2005, after two years of construction at a cost of $247,000.

Glitch Blamed for Fire Alarm on Orbiter

Glitch Blamed for Fire Alarm on Orbiter - New York Times

False alarm in the space station! Uh oh....click the link above to read the whole story!

Astronauts and mission managers scrambled yesterday when a fire alarm went off on the Russian part of the International Space Station. Within 20 minutes, however, the problem was determined to be a software glitch.

After alarms clanged in the background and a Russian interpreter seemed to grow breathless trying to keep up with the stream of discussion on the alarm and the response, Clayton C. Anderson, an astronaut on the space station, called down to mission control and said, “We looked around and smelled around,” and found no evidence of fire.

In a briefing for reporters from Houston, mission managers said the alarm was set off by a problem with Russian computers that work with American ones to control the navigation and functions of the station.

When the Russian computers failed, control of the attitude of the station was transferred to small maneuvering jets on the space shuttle Atlantis. But in that mode of control, the station’s solar panels rest in a poor position for gathering sunlight, so power levels dipped and mission control had to order some inessential equipment be turned off until attitude control could be turned back over to the station

.

Top Stories - JFRD Gets Award from PETA for Effort in Humane Society Fire

Top Stories - JFRD Gets Award from PETA for Effort in Humane Society Fire

The problems faced by firefighters in this building were incredible:

The fire at the Humane Society was a new kind of battle for firefighters.

"No fire alarms came in or anything, it was a passerby that saw it," said Lt. Michael Biladeau of Fire Station 28. "The whole roof was engulfed, so it lit up every room."

When they tried to get inside, they were faced with a challenge they hardly ever have to deal with.

"The place was like on lockdown. I mean every door was locked, we had to force all the doors," said Lt. Biladeau.

It quickly became exhausting. "It took extra effort to get into every door, so after about two or three doors, you're just really tired."

Once past the locked doors, firefighters found locked kennel after locked kennel.

"We'd be in a room and you'd have an engine guy spraying water, you'd have a ladder guy pulling ceiling, and at the same time another guy would be in there opening kennels, shooing dogs out."

System Sensor fire alarm test

Set to the Temporal 3 (T3) pattern.

Three dead in mid-rise fire unidentified

Three dead in mid-rise fire unidentified | LOCAL NEWS | KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas

A detailed report of the fire with extensive video of the rescue and suppression operations.

There are also reports that the fire sprinklers and fire alarms DID NOT WORK. The last inspection was in 2005.

High Rise Fire in Chicago office building

AP Wire | 03/28/2007 | Smoke billows from downtown Chicago office building

The reactions of the people are interesting. Remember, most high rise buildings have selective alarm signals and are not designed for complete evacuation in the event of a fire. Maybe someone should tell the occupants?

Victims sue over fire alert failures

AS a fierce bushfire swept towards his Warragamba church on Christmas Day 2001, Catholic priest John Evans battled to save it - sacrificing his own house in the process.
Father Evans is among 42 bushfire victims suing the state of New South Wales for failing to alert them to the blaze that destroyed their homes and businesses.
The residents claim they received no warnings at all that a bushfire was bearing down on the townships of Warragamba, Silverdale and Mulgoa.
As a result, more than $10 million damage was caused, with houses and businesses lost to the flames, as well as "historic homes of national significance".
Among the items lost were "pieces of Australian history", including a set of diaries penned by explorer Gregory Blaxland.
The class action is being brought against such organisations as the Rural Fire Service, NSW Fire Brigades and National Parks and Wildlife Service.
During a preliminary hearing in the Supreme Court yesterday, barrister David Nock SC said authorities "knew or ought to have known" that a bushfire was sweeping toward the towns.
"There was a failure to notify (the townships) in sufficient time so residents could minimise damage to property," Mr Nock said.
He told the court that, at 11am on the day of the blaze, members of a local Rural Fire Service were dressed "in Father Christmas suits ringing a bell" rather than preparing to fight a bushfire.
For the rest of the story click here. Source: News.com.au

Although this is story is out of Australia, how long before a smiliar action is taken against a fire department in the United States?