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Re: Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas

  • From: Stephen Sprunk
  • Date: Thu Mar 30 18:04:46 2000

While I agree that preservation of life is a high priority, one must
evaluate the business reality of what you're saying.

Take a 50-story office building (or in Dallas's case, a couple dozen of
them), in which you want a battery plant.  The first floor is off limits
(public access, lobby use, etc) as well as the fourth to the fiftieth.  That
means you have two floors of battery to power the other forty-seven?  Not to
mention the safety issues in hauling that amount of DC power up to the
fiftieth floor.  Throw in the proposed bans on diesel backup generators and
you might as well forget batteries altogether.

Or do you propose all existing carrier hotels (typically high-rises) be
dismantled and replaced with large numbers of three-floor buildings?  While
short buildings may be a necessity in earthquake-prone areas like
California, they're simply not economically viable in the rest of the
country.

I understand there are safety implications for the public, facility staff,
and emergency services.  I would support a proposal for mandatory markings,
access control, environmental containment, fume ventilation, or any other
reasonable safety measures; I can't support any proposal that effectively
bans batteries.

S

     |          |         Stephen Sprunk, K5SSS, CCIE #3723
    :|:        :|:        Network Consulting Engineer, NSA
   :|||:      :|||:       14875 Landmark Blvd #400; Dallas, TX
.:|||||||:..:|||||||:.    Email: [email protected]


----- Original Message -----
From: Henry R. Linneweh
To: Sean Donelan
Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 16:02
Subject: Re: Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas


This is disturbing, I think that people, environment and property are
the crux of importance in the order stated.

Above the 3rd floor is a risk to human life and therefore
unacceptable, being A First Responder Operational (FRO)
I can clearly see this as a serious risk, technical details of
burning acid fumes omitted.

Sean Donelan wrote:

> On Thu, 30 March 2000, "Stephen Sprunk" wrote:
> > Maybe this is a facet of natural disasters rarely afflicting downtown
areas
> > around here...
>
> Maybe an occasional cattle stampede through downtown Dallas ...
>
> > I've noticed that every telco colo facility I've been in around downtown
> > Dallas has the same design...  All are in high-rise facilities, on the
> > 10th-30th floors.  All have the battery and A/C rooms around the
elevator
> > shafts at the center of the floor plan, surrounded by all the equipment
> > racks/cages around the outside facing the windows.
>
> Gravity is a tough law to break.  Batteries and mechanical equipment are
> heavy, and must go where the floor is strongest. Which tends to be the
> core of the building.  As always consult a licensed structural engineer.
>
> Protecting against an airplane crashing into the side of the building is
> hard (although the Empire State building survived).  Pick your risks and
> mitigate those within commercial reason.  Lloyds of London exists for the
> rest.  Sometimes the best commercial solution is putting your equipment
> around the outside.  You loose one rack of routers to wayward tree, a few
> customers are down.  Loose your electrical plant, and everyone is S.O.L.
> Triage is never a pleasant experience.
>
> Another note about battery rooms in high-rise buildings.  There is/was a
> proposal before the NFPA to prohibit battery rooms above the third floor
> in high-rise structures after the L.A. CO fire.  I haven't been keeping
> close watch on it, but Bellcore/Telcordia was fighting it tooth&nail.

--
Thank you;
|--------------------------------------------|
| Thinking is a learned process so is UNIX   |
|--------------------------------------------|
Henry R. Linneweh