User:Martaconsidine/sandbox

OUTLINE

I. Background Information

  -The telephone building at the time was used to connect phone lines to trunk lines- which served 173,000 lines and affected around 173,000 people. 
  -Just after midnight a short circuit on the first floor of the building started the fire. 
  - The cable vault was right below the main distribution frame. 
  - The subscriber distribution frame, located on the third floor, was the first location to be seen with smoke. 
  - Calls to the fire department failed because the telephone lines were disconnected from the fire. 
  -A call was finally made by an employee attempting to activate the alarm in the street. 
   - Firefighters got the call at 12:55, but the fire wasn't declared under control until 3:40 AM. 
  - However, it reignited twenty minutes later and was then again declared under control at 4:46 AM
  -300 firefighters worked to put out the fire using various techniques such as water and high expansion foam  
  - 68 miles of cable were replaced 
  - Ten Million electro chemical relays were cleaned manually 
  -The clean up took one full month and included 4000 people 
  -Most of the cables on the first and second floor were destroyed, but damage was seen throughout the eleventh floor  

II. Aftermath: Source: New York Daily News

  - Joseph Pfundstein, Thomas Pitarresi or Richard Schultz. Pfundstein, 45, died of leukemia in 1983. Pitarresi, 62, died of colon cancer in 2000. Schultz, 63, died of liver cancer in 2002. 
   - 29 Years after the fire, Dr. Steven Levin declared that Dan Noonan's case of leukimia was a result of his work the telephone exchange fire of 1975. 
   -Polyvinyl chloride, a chemical present during the fire, leads to cancers that appear close to twenty years after exposure. 
   -The issue with this fire is that FDNY failed to document medical history of the men who put the fire out, making it difficult to determine conclusions about the effects. 
   - The department's only actions include a red stamp stating "Telephone Fire" on their documents. 
   - They have also rejected concerns of sending out a cancer warning to anyone affected. 
   - In 1997, the Fire Department of New York interviewed 239 men who reported symptoms after the fire, to find that 18 had already died, seven of those deaths were a result of cancer. 
   - Six of those seven deaths were from firefighters who were first responders 
   - The average age of those deaths was fifty. 
  - Beginning in the 1990s, the New York law assumed that all firefighters' cancer is work related and as a result have compensated by paying them 75% of pension, instead of the usual 50%. 
  -However, if cancer isn't diagnosed until after retirement, the firefighters compensation is nothing. 

III. Further Implications

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Port, B. (2004, March 14). THREE DECADES AFTER AN INFAMOUS NEW YORK TELEPHONE CO. BLAZE, CANCER RAVAGES HEROES. Retrieved October 14, 2015.

This source comes from a reliable author because he writes for the New York Daily News, a credible source. Since the fire was in New York and this article is from the New York Daily news , we know it is reliable. In addition, it is a news source so it offers a neutral point of view and is verifiable. This supplies us with factual information about the aftermath of the fire, 30 years later. It informs us about the dangers of toxins and the firefighters resulting deaths from inhaling these toxins. The point of view of this author is a more objective and informative perspective because it is a news article so the goal is strictly to educate. This will benefit me in my writing because I will not take up any bias.

Woodruff, M. (2015, March 13). Fire history: New York Telephone Exchange fire. Retrieved October 20, 2015, from http://nfpatoday.blog.nfpa.org/2015/03/fire-history-new-york-telephone-exchange-fire.html

This is a high quality source because NFPA is an organization devoted to eliminated deaths and hazards from electrical misfortunes. It supports the information in the article by Port as well as points me towards other sources such as a video supported by AT&T that documents the efforts done to restore service in the buildings. This specific article is more of an overview, so it has a neutral point of view. This should benefit when I contribute to Wikipedia because I do not have to worry about bias.

Reconnecting 170,000 Phone Customers in NYC After a Major Fire - AT&T Archives. (2012, June 28). Retrieved October 20, 2015.

This source, although sponsored by Youtube, is a video published by AT&T in order to help efforts to restore service to the buildings affected. It compiles a bunch of videos from the actual fire, as well as point of views from officers actually there. This provides us with a first hand account of what actually happened, which is a reliable source because the video shows real footage. It will be helpful when I contribute to wikipedia because it discusses an over view of what happened, but also goes into specifics about solutions and how they actually restored service. The specific evidence will be beneficial in the subcategories.

Gagliano, M. (2006, March 1). Login - Fire Engineering. Retrieved October 20, 2015.

This article focuses on the chemicals in fires and the negative consequences that they have. I thought this would be a beneficial source because I could use it to back up the other article about firefighters dying as a result of the chemicals in smoke. It is a reliable source because it is a fire engineering magazine that provides emergency services and information. It's primary motive is educating. Therefore, it writes from a neutral point of view, which Wikipedia requires. I will use this source to expand on the subsection which hones in on chemicals and the negative effects.

Feedback of Sources and Outline

Your sources don't have complete citations so it is difficult to verify if they are reliable. Outline/plan seems detailed.KatieBU (talk) 17:03, 30 October 2015 (UTC)