6 ms·

While I'm only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&T building, seriously underestimated what these

While I'm only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers). This certainly wasn't a small explosion, from the looks of it. But taking out a bunker .. unless you have access to weapons specially build for that purpose, good luck. That AT&T still went down, may just demonstrated an apparent oversight in their emergency procedures for this site. I don't know the details, but having backup generators that rely any public infrastructure sounds like a pretty bad choice. That said, maybe those generators first burned through a decent supply of diesel fuel, only to later rely on (in this case absent) gas. I have no idea how much diesel would be required to keep that site running for a prolonged period of time. Maybe such an amount could pose regulatory/safety issues on its own. Nonetheless, the sole purpose of emergency generators is to provide power that does not depend on any external factors (maybe aside from air/oxygen). So to me this story does sound at least a bit weird. But somebody targeting that building and totally underestimating their chances, even if they may have still succeeded partially (if only by "luck") .. nah, that can not surprise me at all.

mech422 6y ago
yeah - as I commented elsewhere - mcveigh did a whole lot more damage with presumably less explosive (van vs. rv) This really sounds like people playing with stuff they have no understanding of.
- jcims 6y ago
  This looked way too bright/flamey/sooty to be a high explosive like McVeigh used.
- macinjosh 6y ago
  OKC bomb was in a Ryder box truck. Not a van.
  - mech422 6y ago
    Huh - you're right...Dunno why I thought it was a van.
  - ksdjhfjkdhfsk 6y ago
    No, actually the explosives were placed in the building itself. The "Ryder truck" story is the official lie.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      Please provide evidence before spreading crazy conspiracy theories.
      - ksdjhfjkdhfsk 6y ago
        Start by looking up the name of that black security guard who raised the alarm about suspicious goings on inside the building (involving the storing of large amounts of explosives in the building) before the blast, only to somehow wind up "dead in the explosion" under suspicious circumstances. You really think a truck-based fertilizer bomb could level a building like that? I bet you think two 737s brought down three towers, also.
avs733 6y ago
>While I'm only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers). Which somehow makes it more plausible to me? The type of insane person who would do this seems like the type of insane person who would underestimate how reinforced such a building is.
- nr2x 6y ago
  It’s odd that if you knew why the building was valuable you wouldn’t also know it’s designed for this. Which makes me lean more towards coincidence.
  - j4yav 6y ago
    Maybe they were blowing it up to stop 5G rays from spontaneously generating viruses, in which case if they didn't really know what they were doing beyond a surface level it wouldn't come as a huge surprise.
    - Throwaway1771 6y ago
      Doesn't fit.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      It's not any rando that can get access to the levels of explosive necessary to do this in the domestic US, it's actually quite hard.
      - tomatotomato37 6y ago
        If you don't need it to be predictable or timely or anything than filling the interior of anything large with propane/natural gas can be enough to create a boom like this. It's essentially just replacing quality with quantity Also on a vaguely related note getting annual statistics for meth lab explosions is surprisingly hard
  - 6y ago
iJohnDoe 6y ago
Calling it a bunker might be overstating it. Maybe some are like bunkers or some have been reinforced. It’s hard to say. Sometimes these central offices are put in really old buildings. Sometimes they are even put in regular homes in a neighborhood. It’s simply based on where they need the connections/circuits and have access to electricity, etc.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  No, a lot of AT&T buildings were built as bunkers, well blockhouses, during the Cold War. The typical "reinforced" criteria was being able to handle 2-3psi over pressure and storm force winds (70mph). This particular building is an old AT&T-cum-BellSouth-cum-AT&T tandem office. It's where end offices (that connected to actual customer phones) would be connected together and connected to inter exchange carriers. AFAIK AT&T tended to build their tandem offices as reinforced style buildings. They are larger than end offices and needed high availability because they were the central node for a region's telephone network and its connection to other networks. I don't think I've ever seen any central office in a regular home in a neighborhood. Even end offices, while smaller than tandems, required a lot of equipment and power backups. Besides the equipment in the building they'd usually have secured parking/storage for service vehicles.
  - function_seven 6y ago
    "Central Office" is the wrong term for it, but I've worked in a couple switching offices that were built to look just like another house in the tract. They were RSUs (Remote Switch Unit), that trunked everything back to a parent CO. In both cases it was a housing tract that was allergic to ugly buildings or something. The vast majority of RSUs looked like smaller versions of the CO. Gray cinder blocks and asphalt.
    - giantrobot 6y ago
      That's interesting, I've only ever seen cross boxes (ugly green boxes) with RCUs in them. Then again I may have seen tons of disguised RSUs and never have known it.
nr2x 6y ago
A guy working in this building told me they had showers to clean off radioactive fallout as the building itself could stand up to a bomb. Guy said “you’d be fucked either way” and laughed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
- graderjs 6y ago
  It's probably not in this case but i wonder if this ATT was a special surveillance nexus... I think it's most likely the bomb wasn't meant to target anything, but was just some person's outlet Edit: i wasn't saying, "nuclear protection probably wasn't the case", i was saying, "the comment I'm about to make probably isn't the case but"... I know it's unclear
  - jacoblambda 6y ago
    This is a relic of the cold war. Most of AT&T's telecom buildings were designed to be able to withstand just about everything except a direct nuclear strike. While services were impacted, none of the actual infrastructure was really damaged and they likely just need to repair the lines running up to the building. TLDR: AT&T's telecom infra is a relic of the cold war and is designed to withstand almost any type of attack.
  - Throwaway1771 6y ago
    Underrated comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
  - nr2x 6y ago
    It’s a collection point of domestic VOIP for the FAIRVIEW program.
    - graderjs 6y ago
      Nice find!
      - 6y ago
jeffbee 6y ago
Facilities don't really keep that large of an inventory of fuel on site. Usually once they start running they have to call for fuel immediately and be regularly refueled until power is restored. They don't have a week of fuel or anything like that. I don't see why natural gas is such a bad backup for utility electric. It doesn't share fate with the electric grid and it's buried. Seems pretty good.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  How long will the gas grid keep working without electricity? Sure, the pressure is likely maintained from a reservoir, but many of the control systems likely depend on electricity, and I could imagine some being fail-safe (solenoids holding valves open and shutting if power fails).
  - DebtDeflation 6y ago
    For a very long time. The natural gas infrastructure uses natural gas generators to run the pumps that pressurize the lines and the meters are 100% mechanical. There's no reliance on the electrical grid. I lived through Northeast Blackout of 2003 (visible from space, the extent was so great) and Hurricane Sandy (power was out for a week) and in neither case was there an interruption to natural gas service. In my 40+ years, I don't ever recall the natural gas service ever going "out".
  - daniellarusso 6y ago
    It depends how well it is maintained, like most infrastructure. https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2014-03-10/ntsb-determines-cause-of-december-2012-sissonville-pipeline-explosion https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2014-03-10/ntsb-determines-cau...
  - namibj 6y ago
    They deliberately do not use grid electricity, as they don't like sparking and there is no need for it. It's just simple mechanical pressure regulators, along with gas turbine compressors on long supply lines to boost the pressure.

mech422 6y ago

yeah - as I commented elsewhere - mcveigh did a whole lot more damage with presumably less explosive (van vs. rv) This really sounds like people playing with stuff they have no understanding of.

jcims 6y ago
This looked way too bright/flamey/sooty to be a high explosive like McVeigh used.
macinjosh 6y ago
OKC bomb was in a Ryder box truck. Not a van.
- mech422 6y ago
  Huh - you're right...Dunno why I thought it was a van.
- ksdjhfjkdhfsk 6y ago
  No, actually the explosives were placed in the building itself. The "Ryder truck" story is the official lie.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    Please provide evidence before spreading crazy conspiracy theories.
    - ksdjhfjkdhfsk 6y ago
      Start by looking up the name of that black security guard who raised the alarm about suspicious goings on inside the building (involving the storing of large amounts of explosives in the building) before the blast, only to somehow wind up "dead in the explosion" under suspicious circumstances. You really think a truck-based fertilizer bomb could level a building like that? I bet you think two 737s brought down three towers, also.

avs733 6y ago

>While I'm only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers). Which somehow makes it more plausible to me? The type of insane person who would do this seems like the type of insane person who would underestimate how reinforced such a building is.

nr2x 6y ago
It’s odd that if you knew why the building was valuable you wouldn’t also know it’s designed for this. Which makes me lean more towards coincidence.
- j4yav 6y ago
  Maybe they were blowing it up to stop 5G rays from spontaneously generating viruses, in which case if they didn't really know what they were doing beyond a surface level it wouldn't come as a huge surprise.
  - Throwaway1771 6y ago
    Doesn't fit.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    It's not any rando that can get access to the levels of explosive necessary to do this in the domestic US, it's actually quite hard.
    - tomatotomato37 6y ago
      If you don't need it to be predictable or timely or anything than filling the interior of anything large with propane/natural gas can be enough to create a boom like this. It's essentially just replacing quality with quantity Also on a vaguely related note getting annual statistics for meth lab explosions is surprisingly hard
- 6y ago

iJohnDoe 6y ago

Calling it a bunker might be overstating it. Maybe some are like bunkers or some have been reinforced. It’s hard to say. Sometimes these central offices are put in really old buildings. Sometimes they are even put in regular homes in a neighborhood. It’s simply based on where they need the connections/circuits and have access to electricity, etc.

giantrobot 6y ago
No, a lot of AT&T buildings were built as bunkers, well blockhouses, during the Cold War. The typical "reinforced" criteria was being able to handle 2-3psi over pressure and storm force winds (70mph). This particular building is an old AT&T-cum-BellSouth-cum-AT&T tandem office. It's where end offices (that connected to actual customer phones) would be connected together and connected to inter exchange carriers. AFAIK AT&T tended to build their tandem offices as reinforced style buildings. They are larger than end offices and needed high availability because they were the central node for a region's telephone network and its connection to other networks. I don't think I've ever seen any central office in a regular home in a neighborhood. Even end offices, while smaller than tandems, required a lot of equipment and power backups. Besides the equipment in the building they'd usually have secured parking/storage for service vehicles.
- function_seven 6y ago
  "Central Office" is the wrong term for it, but I've worked in a couple switching offices that were built to look just like another house in the tract. They were RSUs (Remote Switch Unit), that trunked everything back to a parent CO. In both cases it was a housing tract that was allergic to ugly buildings or something. The vast majority of RSUs looked like smaller versions of the CO. Gray cinder blocks and asphalt.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    That's interesting, I've only ever seen cross boxes (ugly green boxes) with RCUs in them. Then again I may have seen tons of disguised RSUs and never have known it.

nr2x 6y ago

A guy working in this building told me they had showers to clean off radioactive fallout as the building itself could stand up to a bomb. Guy said “you’d be fucked either way” and laughed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street

graderjs 6y ago
It's probably not in this case but i wonder if this ATT was a special surveillance nexus... I think it's most likely the bomb wasn't meant to target anything, but was just some person's outlet Edit: i wasn't saying, "nuclear protection probably wasn't the case", i was saying, "the comment I'm about to make probably isn't the case but"... I know it's unclear
- jacoblambda 6y ago
  This is a relic of the cold war. Most of AT&T's telecom buildings were designed to be able to withstand just about everything except a direct nuclear strike. While services were impacted, none of the actual infrastructure was really damaged and they likely just need to repair the lines running up to the building. TLDR: AT&T's telecom infra is a relic of the cold war and is designed to withstand almost any type of attack.
- Throwaway1771 6y ago
  Underrated comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
- nr2x 6y ago
  It’s a collection point of domestic VOIP for the FAIRVIEW program.
  - graderjs 6y ago
    Nice find!
    - 6y ago

jeffbee 6y ago

Facilities don't really keep that large of an inventory of fuel on site. Usually once they start running they have to call for fuel immediately and be regularly refueled until power is restored. They don't have a week of fuel or anything like that. I don't see why natural gas is such a bad backup for utility electric. It doesn't share fate with the electric grid and it's buried. Seems pretty good.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
How long will the gas grid keep working without electricity? Sure, the pressure is likely maintained from a reservoir, but many of the control systems likely depend on electricity, and I could imagine some being fail-safe (solenoids holding valves open and shutting if power fails).
- DebtDeflation 6y ago
  For a very long time. The natural gas infrastructure uses natural gas generators to run the pumps that pressurize the lines and the meters are 100% mechanical. There's no reliance on the electrical grid. I lived through Northeast Blackout of 2003 (visible from space, the extent was so great) and Hurricane Sandy (power was out for a week) and in neither case was there an interruption to natural gas service. In my 40+ years, I don't ever recall the natural gas service ever going "out".
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  It depends how well it is maintained, like most infrastructure. https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2014-03-10/ntsb-determines-cause-of-december-2012-sissonville-pipeline-explosion https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2014-03-10/ntsb-determines-cau...
- namibj 6y ago
  They deliberately do not use grid electricity, as they don't like sparking and there is no need for it. It's just simple mechanical pressure regulators, along with gas turbine compressors on long supply lines to boost the pressure.