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One of the fun parts of working in Silicon Valley is that there's... industrial stuff everywhere. At one office building, not only did we have the usual fire ev
by wumpus 5y ago
One of the fun parts of working in Silicon Valley is that there's... industrial stuff everywhere. At one office building, not only did we have the usual fire evacuation plan, but we had extra instructions because of one of our neighbors, who had storage tanks with the usual fab chemicals. Yow.
- Fnoord 5y agoYeah, that's not just in SV. Here in The Netherlands, you might have a neighbor who hosts illegal fireworks in their apartment/house. Some of that (e.g. 'cobra') is akin to having explosives. Which is illegal to have in your house, due to the safety concerns for other people.
- cromka 5y agoIs this in any particular way specific to The Netherlands? Sounds like it could happen anywhere?
- tinus_hn 5y agoIt’s like the Prohibition era. The Netherlands have always tried to control fireworks much more rigidly than the surrounding countries, and now have prohibited fireworks completely under the guise of COVID. There is still a big market for it though. The obvious and predictable result is that the stockpiles don’t end up in a bunker but in peoples homes and consist of ever stronger and more dangerous items.
- cromka 5y agoI see. Sounds like the plan backfired /s
- KarlKemp 5y agoThe intend was to reduce pressure on hospitals. That worked very well, with emergency room visits dropping 85 % compared to the year before, even more to pre-Covid New Year's Eves
- tinus_hn 5y agoA drop indeed, a drop in a bucket. In total fireworks resulted in about 400 emergency room visits in 2019-2020 on a population of 17 million. So this went from about 5 visits per emergency location per year to about 2. Totally and completely insignificant.
- phasersout 5y agoA small bavarian town in the 80's. A summer day in an elementary school which happens to be across a leather-tanning-plant. One of the kids suddenly bursts out "hey look, why do all the trees suddenly turn brown?". The teacher is flabbergasted but wise enough to close all the windows immediately. Outside it looks like autumn is in full blow, while the sirens in the city go off and the road between school and plant fills rapidly with firetrucks, ambulance and police cars... It later turned out that one container had over-pressure and a chemical escaped trough an outlet... no people were harmed though but every leave in the vicinity turned completely brown...