Alarm system

“ Thermostats may be operated on open or closed circuits, that is, they may give the alarm by closing a circuit and ringing a bell, or by opening one and releasing a contact spring as in the burglar alarm system to be described later. ”

“ With an avalanche perched on a mountain-peak, it has often been a very slight force that has determined the path it has taken, and which of two villages miles apart was to be demolished by it. The fire-alarm system in our cities uses electricity as an initiatory motion: the hammers of the tower-bells are worked by the descent of heavy weights—wound up by manual power from time to time—and the store of energy contained in the elevated masses is instantly made available by an electric current from the central office simply freeing a detent and allowing the weight to fall. ”

“ The electric current is used to operate an almost endless variety of automatic alarms for special purposes. Houses may be thoroughly protected from undesired nocturnal visitors by means of a carefully arranged system of burglar alarms. Doors and windows are fitted with spring contacts so that the slightest opening of them closes a battery circuit and causes an alarm to sound, and even if the burglar succeeds in getting inside without moving a door or window, say by cutting out a pane of glass, his troubles are not by any means at an end. ”

“ In fire-alarm telegraphy, a system so arranged that when one alarm is being transmitted, no other alarm, sent in from another point, will be transmitted until after the first alarm has been disposed of. ”

“ In business centers, determined and cunning burglars, accustomed to take large chances, might frequently overpower the watchman and stop the alarm before it excited outside attention. To meet this difficulty the plan is sometimes adopted of making the alarm sound in a central office of the company furnishing the apparatus. One company doing this has adopted a system that seems to be beyond circumvention. Each building protected is connected on a closed circuit with the central office, at which place delicate galvanometers are used as indicators. ”

“ There should be an alarm system to alert people in all parts of the facility including isolation areas such as cold rooms (172) .
(c) A spill control policy should be developed and should include consideration of prevention, containment, cleanup, and reporting (175) . ”

“ One of the most interesting features in the American fire-system is the extreme ingenuity that is exercised to insure the speedy arrival of the apparatus at a fire. As has been said, in less than a minute after the alarm-box has been pulled the bells are ringing out the alarm all over the city; and—incredible as it may seem—sometimes in ten seconds after the alarm is rung, the engines have left their stations with steam up and every one prepared for work! ”

“ By means of his pretext of alarm about cranks and kidnapers she was being thoroughly spied upon without the spies suspecting what they were really about. By day there were the personal guards, to inform him if she tried to communicate with Roger [228] either personally or by message. By night there were the watchman within and the three patrolmen without, and a system of burglar alarms that made it impossible for anyone either to leave or to enter without flooding the whole house with light and starting up a clamor of bells from attics to cellars. ”

“ There are, to be sure, substitutes for the accredited central station service. But none of them appears to operate on the same level as the central station service so as to meet the interchangeability test of the du Pont case. Nonautomatic and automatic local alarm systems appear on this record to have marked differences, not the low degree of differentiation required of substitute services as well as substitute articles.
Watchman service is far more costly and less reliable. Systems that set off an audible alarm at the site of a fire or burglary are cheaper but often less reliable. ”

“ The compartment ls divided into two smoke detection zones, each of which is equipped with a dual smoke detection system providing a warning to the flight crew. There is no evidence that the flight crew were aware of any indications of fire prior to the sounding in the cockpit of the main deck cargo warning alarm bell. ”

“ The bells of burglar alarms may be arranged to ring in a bedroom or in the street, and in the United States, where burglar and in fact all electric alarms are in more general use than in England, large houses are sometimes connected to a police station, so that the alarm is given there by bell or otherwise. ”

“ By pulling the hook down inside, the number of the box is telegraphed to the headquarters of the fire department, and the operator there sends another dispatch notifying the different engine houses in the immediate vicinity 18of the fire. This alarm comes in to us in the shape of sharp strokes, indicating the number of the alarm box. This is what we call a first alarm, and you will notice that there is a gong here in the box which rings when the handle is turned. ”

“ Some men are reading, others writing reports, mayhap; a few are in their shirt-sleeves working, polishing the reserve engine: a calm reigns. We glance up at the automatic fire-alarm which,when just heated, rings the call, and "it will warm up also with your hand." ”

“ A place, called the alarm-post, is generally appointed at which the troops are to assemble when an alarm is given.—Alarm is also the name given to several contrivances in which electricity is made use of, as a fire-alarm, by which intelligence is at once conveyed to the proper quarter when a fire breaks out; a burglar-alarm, an arrangement of wires and a battery in a house intended to set a bell or bells ringing should a burglar attempt to gain entrance. ”

“ In thermometers a circuit broken or completed acts as a fire signal, or, on shipboard, heralds the approach of an iceberg. Electric fingers sound a gong when the water recedes below the safety level in a steam boiler, or report an attempted breach of bolt or bar by the burglar's jimmy. Each of these warnings can be registered at a distance, so that in case of neglect by an attendant there can be no disputing the fact. Now, if an electric alarm can summon a servant to duty, why may not the inventor go further, and so add to his device that it shall of its own motion do what needs to be done? ”

“ For example, suppose our company were to be called out to-night to a fire, and I were to find on arrival that it was in my own district, I would take command, even if another battalion chief were to be present also. In the same way he would take command, if the fire were in his district. But, suppose I find that the fire is a big one and in danger of spreading. I go to the box and sound the second alarm, which brings up an additional force. ”

“ Fires can grow quickly, and individuals may have as few as 2 minutes to evacuate. Working smoke detectors give people more time to escape fires. At least 94 percent of American homes are equipped with smoke alarms, yet most home fire deaths happen in homes where smoke alarms are not working. By installing and maintaining working smoke alarms on every level of the home, having a fire emergency response plan, and evacuating if the alarm sounds, families and individuals can be ready to respond to a fire. ”

“ Every fire alarm turned in night or day in this city of three million people came to this central station. The tickers told of fire-box calls. The telephone was ever ready for the call of some woman who had upset her grease can on the stove, or some person who had discovered a blaze coming from the sixteenth floor of a skyscraper. Tens of thousands of calls a year; yet this untiring ear, listening by day and night, hears and passes on every one. And it was in this central station that Johnny had waited so long. ”

“ For the efficient use of apparatus, a well-drilled fire department is required. Watchmen particularly should be thoroughly trained in the use of appliances for combating flame, and should be familiar with the positions of valves, hose, and buckets. Aid in their work is given by an excellent electric fire-alarm, which is gradually coming into use in the mills of New England. It announces instantly, in both engine room and office, the point at which a dangerously high temperature or fire exists. ”

“ In one town no relation or employé of the owner receives a reward. In other cities no rewards are given for calls to a fire in a dust-bin or a chimney.
No true fireman would be annoyed at a false alarm given by mistake. The possibility of a fire, or the suspicion of one, is a bona fide reason for a call which should not be discouraged. Malicious alarms should, however, be treated with the utmost rigour, as the absence of firemen from their stations always means an extra risk to life and property. ”

“ In all American cities when a fire-alarm box is "pulled" the alarm is transmitted direct to a central-bureau, usually at fire headquarters, and is then retransmitted, either automatically or by hand, to the engine-houses; but in London—and in every other European city—each fire station has its own alarm-bureau, in charge of an officer and several operators, these stations receiving only the alarms from the boxes in the immediate neighborhood. All the stations, however, are connected with each other, and with a central-bureau or headquarters, by both telegraph and telephone. ”

“ There’s a gong here, too, you see, as well as down stairs, and when the alarm rings, the fireman jumps out of bed and, you might say, right into his turnout, pulls the trousers up and runs for the sliding pole, and there’s a race every time to see who will get down first. The driver and engineer always sleep next to the poles so that they can get down ahead of the others. Down stairs there are two men on duty all the time at night. When the alarm sounds and the horses run to their places, these men must be at their heads to snap their collars and hitch the reins to their bits. ”

“ When instant action is needed in the city of New York, a General Alarm can in five minutes be sent by the police wires over its whole vast area of three hundred square miles. When, recently, a gas main broke in Brooklyn, sixty girls were at once called to the centrals in that part of the city to warn the ten thousand families who had been placed in danger. When the ill-fated General Slocum caught fire, a mechanic in a factory on the water-front saw the blaze, and had the presence of mind to telephone the newspapers, the hospitals, and the police. ”

“ Now in my country the men all stand up in a row and are inspected by their commanding officer before they leave their quarters, and each one must have his boots blacked and his clothing all properly arranged before he gets up on the engine.”
“If we were to stop here to inspect our men we’d never get to the fire at all,” replied the Chief. “If a man doesn’t take interest enough in his work to turn out the instant the alarm comes, why there’s no room for him in the department. ”

“ The fire-alarm boxes are large, ornate-looking affairs, placed on the corners of the principal boulevards and streets and in the public squares, 153 and directions on the outside of these boxes inform you that, in addition to breaking the glass door (which automatically transmits the number of the box to the nearest fire station) , you must also use the telephone inside and give a description of the fire, its character, size, and location (street number if possible) ; and it is necessary to go through all this proceeding before the sending of an alarm is considered complete. ”

“ Indeed so efficient are the men and apparatus, that even a second alarm is quite unusual. The second and third alarms are communicated to the City Hall operator by simply ‘pulling’ the same box a second and third time; or if the pulling apparatus should have been destroyed at an early stage of the fire, by transmitting a request by a Morse telegraph key, which is placed in every box for the use of the employés when out testing the circuits. Every one knows the number of the box situated near to his residence or place of business ”

“ If a spot is half red and half white it means that the station houses two companies, one engine and one hook and ladder. Green is for an emergency squad. When a fire alarm is sent in we know that certain companies will go out, say 12, 18 and 30. By moving plugs I darken their lights. We can tell by a glance at the map just how our forces stand. ”

“ Next morning we sent for the burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was attached to the alarm. This was simply idiotic; one might as well have no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs. The expert now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred dollars for it, and went his way. ”

“ If in connexion with some other paying enterprise, as in the case of the messenger services referred to, it would be a different matter, though it should also not be forgotten that too great a number of call points means a probable repetition of signals of the same fire, and a risk of too many sections of the fire brigade being on the road to it.
Besides these forms of “call,” there is also the private alarm. Dangerous buildings are frequently provided with telephones, alarm-posts, or even automatic temperature indicators, by which a call can be given direct from the “risk” involved. ”