When warning signs backfire

[ban-all-sheds]

It probably seemed like a good idea to Verizon at the time - discourage people from tampering with your phone cables by plastering them with "High Voltage" warning signs.

It did not deter a bunch of homeless people from setting up a camp next to them, though.

But what it did do when there was a fire in the camp was to deter the firefighters from spraying them with water until they'd found a way to get the electricity shut off. By the time they tracked down a Verizon employee, only to find that there was no electricity, tens of thousands of fibre optic and copper cables had been severed.

Thousands of people cut off, outages for some lasted several days, emergency calls affected, alarm services non-functional....

http://www.eagletribune.com/latestnews/x550073983/Something-that-valuable-has-to-be-secured

 

[bernardgreen]

Not un-typical of American "planning"

No alternate routing. Like on the other side of the bridge or over another bridge. The conduits left un protected was the biggest mistake.

And they want to blame the sign when it fact the damage would almost certainly have been prevented by installing the conduits in better location.

But I am not surprised by it. Walking through an upper class residential area a few miles from Washington DC I saw some very warm oil dripping from a tin can transformer on a pole and making a puddle on the side walk. Strung along the tops of the poles was an 11 Kv ( or similar ) three phase route feeding these tin cans.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

What sort of oil?

Crisp'n'Dry?

http://www.milk.com/wall-o-shame/bucket.html