Even the New York Times withholds the address

Sean Donelan sean at donelan.com
Tue Nov 19 07:42:27 UTC 2002



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/19/nyregion/19FUEL.html
   The New York Times is withholding the addresses of the buildings at the
   request of city officials, who cited their importance to international
   telecommunications and their potential as terrorist targets.

While almost everyone on this list knows which building is the subject
of the article, we can discuss the issue without discussing the particular
building.

On-site fuel storage is one of those double-edge swords.  Without on-site
fuel there are several "ordinary" disasters which would be worsened if
the telecommunications infrastructure went dark.  For example, during ice
stores, hurricanes, etc we want telecom facilities to stay up for one, two
or three days, depending on how long you believe it will take for the
roads to be passible for fuel trucks or the power to be restored.

On the other hand, storing 72-hours of fuel in a building is a lot of
fuel. NORAD has a million of gallons of fuel to run for at least 30 days
inside the mountain.  Hospitals, police stations, etc have a similar
problem. Natural gas, fuel cells, more batteries each have their own
issues.

Less fuel, more risk of a community's 9-1-1 service being interrupted.
More fuel, more risk of a catastrophic building fire.




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