Verizon vs. the Needham Fire Department

netbuzz writes "At issue is whether — or not — there was a minor fire in a house on Pine Grove Street in Needham, Mass., caused by a Verizon employee drilling through an electrical main. Everyone agrees that whatever happened — or didn't happen — was indeed the fault of the Verizon employee; it's "fire or no fire" that is at issue. Verizon says no fire, not even smoke. The Needham Fire Department begs to differ. New eye-witness reports are emerging ... and it's not looking good for Verizon."

Comments

Re:wow

[AskChopper]

Yep.. Happens a lot. Last year I was with a team trying to find a water pipe that was leaking when their JCB dug right through an electrical cable in the water filled hole. The resulting fireball singed the eyebrows off one of the guys who was leaning over the hole to look in. It left a whole Business Park without electricity. The employees loved it because they all got sent home. The companies themselves were less than pleased though!

Stupid semantics argument

[Spazmania]

Verizon guy shorts the home's electric main, it sparks like hell inside the wall leaving burns and smoke comes out of the meter where the fuse blew.

Argument that its a fire: things got burned.

Argument that its not a fire: apparantly no secondary ignition. The burns were evidently from the sparks and the fuse melting.

As for the fireman saying, "if there's flames..." It take a few minutes for the fire truck to arrive. If there were flames when they got there, they'd be substantial enough that there wouldn't be any argument over whether there was a fire. His claim of the existance of flames can't be based on primary observation by either him or his staff.

I can see why Verizon cares about the difference. If there was a fire, that's a compelling reason for the county to change the ordinances governing the certifications their installers are required to hold. If there were just some sparks with the protection on the electrical circuits preventing a fire as designed then there's no reason to change the ordinances.

DirecTV Story

[Se7enLC]

When I wanted to add a cable drop in my room, I opted to pay DirecTV to do the installation, thinking that they would bring a giant ladder and check to make sure that they ran the cable in an appropriate place. Things that I shouldn't be doing in a rental apartment. Oh no. Here's what they did:

• They took my personally-owned coax cable and cut the end off it. (I had a 50ft cable running to the jack in the other room as a temporary solution).
  
• Drilled a hole through the wall going outside without even pausing to consider what was in that wall
  
• Dropped the cable down the side of the house
  
• Realized it wasn't long enough and put a coupler on it and added another cable (don't they have SPOOLS OF CABLE on their truck?)
  
• Drilled a hole through the frame of the basement window
  
• Fed the cable haphazardly in to connect to the box.
  
• Attached the cable to the wall by putting a staple THROUGH the cable, trying to take it back out of the cable, giving up, cutting off the excess, and using another staple to go around it.
  

It was only a matter of time before one of these morons drilled through an electrical line.

As an experienced firefighter

[HangingChad]

There is no doubt when something is on fire. We deal with all kinds of incidents. We're a dirt poor volunteer department and even we have thermal cameras that will distinguish the merely hot from something on fire, even through walls. We also have infrared surface thermometers so we know where to cut the hole in the wall.

I've also seen it happen that something was smoking hot until the access hole is cut and when the air gets in it bursts into flame. Particularly in walls and behind panels. I doubt the Verizon techs were close enough to see when the fire department got there.

The witnesses said they saw white, puffy smoke. That usually means the fire is out. It also indicates there was a fire to put out.

Just amazes me that the truth is so hard for so many organizations these days.