Editor:
This is in response to Wednesday's "Sprinklers flood La Paz rooms" article. There appear to be a few things which were not investigated fully. Why did it take the fire department 18 minutes to arrive at the scene? This is a terrible response time! Had there really been a fire we would now be considering whether or not to rebuild La Paz.
Why was the sprinkler water allowed to run for so long? Since this has happened before and will probably happen again, why not allow the resident assistants to turn off the sprinkler water in the case of an obvious false alarm? The fire department will still arrive to investigate and a considerable amount of property damage could be saved in the mean time.
Sure, Ms. Rose bears some responsibility for not following the rules, and her family is taking appropriate responsibility for damages. But isn't putting her name on the front page just a bit like rubbing salt in a wound? Though I have no idea who she is, I'm sure she is quite reasonably embarrassed by her mistake, but why must the Wildcat rub salt in her wounds by repeatedly naming her?
In an era of public responsibility, wouldn't it have been better to simply report the story, and state that the "perpetrator" is taking responsibility for her actions, and then figure out how to prevent this from happening again? Training residents not to hang things from sprinkler heads is important, but having an effective way to reduce water damage could have solved much of the problem here.
Jay C. Langdon
Human Resources Management Senior
Former Safety Manager