Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 3

Failure of the Fans Workers ventilated wrong tunnel during fatal subway fire By Jim Dwyer STAFT WHITER New York Despite claims by the Transit Authority that the subway ventilation system ran well its workers initially turned on fans in the wrong tunnel during the smoky fire that killed two people last week It was not until the blaze was extinguished 70 minutes after the smoke first was spotted tht a nearby i fan in the correct tunnel was turned oir The emergency respiratory system designed to keep people alive when the normal ventila- tion stops failed once again last week this time possibly contributing to the deaths of two people By itself sending air into the wrong tunnel the Joralemon tube probably did little harm since the transit workers do much to send it where it was needed into the Clark Street tunnel The powerful fans that could have quickly cleared the smoke have been sitting in a warehouse in New Philadelphia Ohio for IS years and much use to people choking in Brooklyn Instead there is a gaping hole on Furman Street in Brooklyn where the Ohio fans were scheduled to be installed in 1981 to feed fresh air into the Clark Street tunnel and The deaths in the Clark Street tunnel Friday are one more indictment of a subway ventilation system that is likely to flop yet again according to public records and sources familiar with transit operations Equipment is missing or faulty employees are ignorant of how to operate the fans that do work ana for more than a decade despite the availability at more than $10 billion in capital funds four successive transit administrations have been unable to replace worn-out fans with new equipment Normally moving trains act as pistons that drive great gusts of air through tunnels Since billowing i smoke in the subways is as natural as rising tides in Venice or shifting earth in San Francisco the ability to create gusts of fresh air when trains are stalled is vital to keeping riders alive But: There has been no working fan for seven years i on the Manhattan side of the Steinway tunnel believed to be the busiest subway tunnel in the western hemisphere The Steinway tube carries the No 7 train Fans were installed more than a year ago in on The reason? A command center worker couldn't chambers near the United Nations but have never find the switch worked During a fire in the busy Montague Street tunnel Four fans for the Brooklyn side of the 14th Street this past fall a transit command center worker Canarsie Line are in a warehouse in Ohio along with turned on fans at opposite ends of the tube in the four fans intended for the Clark Street tunnel They exhaust position that did was trap the smoke in have been in storage since 1977 because of contract the said a TA ventilation expert like disputes asbestos problems and little energy exerted having two people sucking at opposite ends of a straw in solving these problems Recently officials discov- not going to collapse the tunnel but what do ered that no room in the Furman Street shaft you There were no injuries to passen-for the switches to turn them on and off The controls gers but the busy tunnel which carries the and will have to be redesigned adding to a delay now trains was closed for most of a day entering its 14th year Friday when word of smoke in the Clark Street New fans along the Archer Avenue line have tunnel reached the transit Command Center at the been out of order since that branch of the subway Jay Street headquarters a worker there reached for a opened in 1988 switch on a panel that controls fans throughout the Transit workers in key jobs been shown 238 miles of subway tracks and tunnels how to use the fans although they all were supposed fellow turned on the fans in the Joralemon to be trained after an embarrassing disaster in July Street according to the ventilation expert 1989About 2000 people were trapped for two hours The east side IRT express trains the 4 and 5 run in a Queens tunnel where temperatures rose to 110 degrees while giant super cooling fans turned Please see SUBWAY on Page 16 In Subway Fire Deja Vu By Michael Powell report illustrates the need continuing vigilance staff writes Over time agencies get New York Those with a good memory could be The Transit Authority yesterday however de-mayand if orathing wynrf nn ti fatjii imfr fleeted comparisons to past fires saying its own inves-way fire sounded familiar i tigation was not complete It was 'r speculate as to procedure that should change is Seventeen years ago an investigation of a fire intbe not fair and we going to do said East River Tunnel of the southbound No 2 train un- Caren Gardner of the Transit Authority earthed problems identical in many repects to those Nonetheless the 1974 report is laced with similari-ffarting rescue efforts in subway fire in the t6 to tat report including recommendations IRT northbound tunnel in which two Long Islanders a Transit Authority to the Fire Depart-died -j mant and installation of new fans in the tunnel capa- The 1974 report by an independent board of inqui- Me of blowing out smoke ry concluded: After last week's fire the report found that a Transit Authority supervisors were although the Transit Authority now has direct com-and munication with the Fire Department it nonetheless There was a "serious 1nA of centralised commu- was to notify all of the emergency re- among fire police and transit personnel sponse and them inaccurate informa-that very to the delays and The Clark Street Tunnel fans were available confusion but had not been installed And as smoke filled the cars r-1 inpart because So too the 1974 fire was marked by delays in re tunnel fans were inoperative pan- storing the electric power needed to remove trains and communication systems failed from the fire area A preliminaiy draft report prepared by Mayor Da- The same lack of communication led to the opposite vid staff found many of the same prob- problem last Friday when the TA took more than a lems in fire including slow response time half-hour to shut power off after the fire broke out and poor coordination among rescue units The delay may have hindered firefighting efforts For critics of the Transit Authority the similarity And lastly in 1974 the Federal Railroad Adminis-is less coincidental than chilling and raises questions tration conducted its own investigation of the fire It about the commitment to correcting safety prob- recommended that the state establish a Public Transients portation Safety Board to oversee transportation safe- sound like we learned much does ty inspections Such a board was established the next said Stephen Dobrow of the Committee for Better year Transit who in 1974 wrote about that fire in a news- But Gov Mario Cuomo has recommended elimina-letter could have said the same thing last tion of the board this year claiming that the Transit Ed Plasberg chief of rail operations for the State Authority now is capable of conducting its own over-Public Transportation Safety Board said the 1974 sight To Our Readers to 1 over any other daily Also the pages of Newsday will continue to provide you with information from our advertisers that helps you make the most informed choice in your purchases We 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