Fire in commercial records center

Here is a message from a records manager in Chicago concerning a
serious fire in a commercial records center.

    On Tuesday, October 29, fire broke out in the Brambles / Data Vault
    Systems records center facility at 3001 N. Knox Ave. in Chicago.
    Damage is extensive, although the exact extent is currently unknown.
    The cause is undetermined at this time.

    The other public facts are that the building was of concrete
    construction and that it was very difficult for the fire department
    to get to the seat of the fire. As of yesterday (Thursday)
    afternoon, they were still putting out hot spots. As of today
    (Friday) at Noon, the fire department had not released the building
    back to Brambles. Also, as the fire department was attempting to
    ventilate and get access to the building, they had to pull down a
    wall and pull out (with mechanical equipment) everything on the
    other side of the wall... racks, boxes, etc. All of this material
    was dumped into a dump truck. I do not know the truck's destination,
    nor do I wish to speculate on this aspect of the matter. I have not
    witnessed the condition of the material pulled out (burned,
    unburned, etc.), but the observation of a representative of my
    client's company (the Business Recovery Coordinator) was that the
    material may have been at least partially salvageable up to the point
    in which it was dumped in the truck. Keep in mind the exigencies of
    the situation, etc., however.

    More information will be reported as it is made available.

    Patrick Cunningham, CRM
    Senior Consultant
    Whittman-Hart, Inc.
    311 S. Wacker Drive
    Suite 3500
    Chicago, IL  60606-6618
    312-913-6691
    Fax: (312) 913-3100
    p1cunnin [at] ix__netcom__com
    Patrick_Cunningham [at] whittman-hart__com

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:44
                 Distributed: Friday, November 1, 1996
                       Message Id: cdl-10-44-007
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