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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."
Believe it or not, this happens more often than you might think. The only difference is: this one got national attention somehow.
The game.
Verizon burns customer.
Since when do you beleive a company that would get sued over the professional firefighters- it's just commmon sense, then you add the fact that people saw the damn thing. What's m ore interesting is the fact that verizon doesn't claim its not their fault- so they're accepting blame for something but not telling you what....?
Verizon technical workers are careless and unqualified?
I'm shocked!
Is this even worth being on Slashdot? Employee screws up, causes problems. International news?
Crap, several of our T1 lines were cut last week by a government employee who "forgot" to get a map of buried cables before digging. It cost us a heck of a lot more than a house (OT and moving of computer equipment from one location to another)... and that is just our business. I am not even sure it got local coverage.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Maybe all the Die Hard 4.0 previews have left be numb, but this story is difficult for me to get excited about.
What's next? "Verizon Employee caught stealing Stationary: Box of blue pens missing. Only cap left."
Interviewer: Sir, what was the reason for leaving your last job?
Employee: Actually, I started a fire in a customers house and denied it ever happend, even though there were eyewitnesses. Needless to say the incident received national attention and my company spent a lot of money in litigation.
Interviewer: We'll let you know.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
I thought this would not even merit a place in the Firehose. Come on guys, if you keep posting such rubbish, I have to log out and do some work.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
One of our new techs was installing a triple play at a Needham home (they're selling like hotcakes, btw).
Perhaps not the best turn of phrase to use, all things considered...
/Verizon waves hand This is the not the fire you are looking for...
Employee: Sounds great. I look forward to working with you Captain Hazelwood.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Whilst of course it would be best practice to check for a mains line before drilling, it's most likely the electrical wire was somewhere it shouldn't have been. Here in the UK such wires should be in line with light switches etc and never go diagonally etc. Id imagine/hope similar rules apply in here...
I think the [MS Word] paperclip is a great idea. - Miguel de Icaza
"Who cares?"
I mean seriously, this didn't even make the local news.
Anyone want to post a front-page story about the plastic Dasani water bottle I found in my front lawn this morning? I feel it was tossed there from a passing car. My girlfriend thinks it was blown there from across the street. I told her people litter all the time on the street in front of our house, so they probably just tossed it on the front lawn.
FWIW, there was no fire in my house when Verizon installed my ONT. Me, Verizon and the town all agree on that.
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.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
The submitter ("When not blogging, I am a Network World news editor and write the 'Net Buzz column.") is just linking to his crappy blog, which is just whoring his employer.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
It was only a matter of time before one of these morons drilled through an electrical line.
There are a couple reports of smoke, one pinpointing the electric meter. And a neighbor reported electric power flickering. Both of these suggest to me there was an arcing fault in the electric service feed between the meter and the first main breaker/fuse in the electrical panel for the house.
These points along the electrical service wiring are critical because there is no overcurrent protection suitable to shut them off. The amount of current such an arc cause draw will be substantial, but it won't always be more than all the homes sharing the same transformer could draw combined at peak loads. So that fuse leading into the transformer isn't likely to stop it. It is intended to stop a short on the high voltage windings inside the transformer. These fuses are intentionally set high to avoid false outages.
Today's electrical codes require substantial physical protection of the wiring between the meter and main panel, such as enclosure in conduit for short distances, and more significant protection for longer distances. But lots of older wiring doesn't have this protection.
Telephone and cable service also needs to come in next to the power for proper grounding purposes.
My biggest concern is the technician doing the installation not having the proper training to work around the power connections.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
.02 cents per damaged .00001 square foot of property!
If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.
Uh... I'm at work in Needham right now. I've also got Verizon DSL and a Verizon cellphone so I'd guess that this story is more relevant to me than almost anyone else on Slashdot. My questions is: if this doesn't matter to me, who does it matter to?
With today's technology IMO this is inexcuseable.
There is no reason that a city can't create a system such that the workers carry with them a GPS-enabled mapping device that can show them EXACTLY what is under them ANYWHERE.
In fact such a system should be federally mandated as mandatory. I hear way too many stories like this.
Those guys are all contractors, paid by the number of installs completed. They DO NOT CARE about quality or design, just "getting complete" so they can get paid. They will take the shortest, fastest path to the checkbox saying they are done unless you are there to make them do otherwise.
Most people in most jobs are not quality focused, and therefore need to be supervised in order to make sure that the job is well done.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
All of this could have been avoided if he had only drilled .002 meters to the left.
What is the big deal? Every commercial I see has about 350+ people walking around. If there "was" a "fire", can you imagine how big the Chinese Water Drill line would have been. FIRE=out in seconds. It's the Network...
Navy Tim www.navytim.com
About 5 years ago some construction crew cut a fiber line downtown Vancouver which cut off Harbour Center or at least quie a few of the ISP's/Webhost.
About a year earlier in Burnaby a construction crew hit a gas line about 100 feet away from our offices. They closed off the whole block till BC arrived and fixed the hole.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Founded during the great pork shortage of 1680.
There is nothing in this story about underground utilities. This is about an installation technician drilling a hole into the wall of a house and hitting a wire.
There REALLY is no excuse for this since an AC finder tool is relatively inexpensive and readily available.
A civil engineer friend told me he was called to inspect a leak in a multi-story downtown building. In the top floor mechanical area, he found a huge hole blasted in the concrete, and twisted metal wreckage of tension bars peeling up from it. The hole wasn't empty, though. It has a cell mast support in it. The building owner had leased space to a cell company, and they had drilled through the concrete, and in doing so had cut apart the sinews holding the building together. "It must have sounded like an explosion -- there's no way they could have not known they did this," he said. The owner checked his contract, and noticed he had signed away *all* right to sue for damages.