KBR now kills soldiers in showers by electrocution

[MKSheppard]

Bad wiring from a company with a good track record is forgivable. KBR, however, are not a fucking company with even a modest track record.

Except their job wasn't to wire the building, genius; it was to inspect the building and issue a report. This they did, reporting multiple safety problems with improper grounds. They did it; and the Army looked at the report, and decided not to issue a contract to rewire the building.

It wasn't until after said high profile death of green beanie that the Army issued an emergency contract to get the building wiring brought up to spec.

[CaptainChewbacca]

One of the things we were taught in our building trades courses is that you follow the contract to the letter. Our teacher was quite insistent on that; both from a business standpoint and liability standpoint. If they want you to do something "extra" like add another circuit on top of what you've already done, you go and get a contract modification first, before doing any work.

Otherwise, you end up being the one left without a chair after the music's stopped.

Its the same in my field. If you notice an out-of-scope problem, you make sure the people in charge know about the problem and what your recommendations are. What you CAN'T do is fix the problem on your own without authorization, thanks to ten layers of bureaucracy and lawsuits.

[Wanderer]

It does bring to mind the scene from Fight Club:

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Shep, does the word Pinto ring any bells???

Here is a hint. Ford got burned anyway as Juries awarded punitive damages when that formula you wrote got out.

It actually would have been cheaper to fix the flaw than to settle the lawsuits after all.

[Patrick Degan]

And the American no-bid contractors who did the work on the facilities couldn't be bothered to make sure this problem wasn't corrected in the first place... why, exactly?

Do you realize how time consuming it is to correct wiring deficiencies with the walls up? We're talking either paying $$$$$$$$$ and spending lots of manhours to fishwire individual wires through the wall, or simply ripping out the entire wall and legacy wire and put up new wiring and wall?

Who cares? Proper safety standards aren't worth a bit of inconvenience? And as fast and dirty alternative solutions have been floated since "looking pretty" isn't important in this situation, you really have no argument.

[MKSheppard]

Proper safety standards aren't worth a bit of inconvenience?

Tell that to the Army. They felt it was acceptable until a Green Beanie got fried.

[Winston Blake]

Proper safety standards aren't worth a bit of inconvenience?

Tell that to the Army. They felt it was acceptable until a Green Beanie got fried.

...and the Army is never wrong, right? What about you, do you feel it was acceptable that 'a Green Beanie got fried'. Ignoring your whining about how shoddy work is acceptable if it's hard enough to fix, do you think the Army made the ethical decision in letting shoddy wiring kill good men?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Proper safety standards aren't worth a bit of inconvenience?

Tell that to the Army. They felt it was acceptable until a Green Beanie got fried.

...and the Army is never wrong, right? What about you, do you feel it was acceptable that 'a Green Beanie got fried'. Ignoring your whining about how shoddy work is acceptable if it's hard enough to fix, do you think the Army made the ethical decision in letting shoddy wiring kill good men?

False dilemma.
It's taking the (increased) chance that accidents will kill good men. Faulty wiring exists all over the world to a degree, it's not a certain death trap.

[Winston Blake]

False dilemma.
It's taking the (increased) chance that accidents will kill good men. Faulty wiring exists all over the world to a degree, it's not a certain death trap.

It would be a false dilemma to say "Either this case of faulty wiring can be fixed and people won't die, or it can be left alone and people will die".

It's not a false dilemma to say "Either this case of faulty wiring can be fixed and people CAN'T die, or it can be left alone and people CAN die".

An engineer who designs a faulty bridge that collapses can't say 'It's not my fault because it wasn't certain death, just an increased chance of failure. It would have cost too much to eliminate that flaw'.

OK, now I'm not a electrician, but it seems like the only way someone can be killed by their shower is if there's a potential difference between the shower head and the drain hole. Water on -> circuit closed. Consider this:

- Take a length of insulated cable, strip the ends.
- Weld one end to the base of the shower head.
- Run it along and down the wall and across to the drain hole.
- Weld the other end to the drain hole.
- Seal it over with silastic or whatever (and maybe spraypaint it).

Now I've gathered from this thread that Shep's an electrician. Shep, does that sound like a reasonable hypothesis and solution? How long would such a job take for someone of your skill level?

[Sea Skimmer]

In tents. Or did the Army not have enough tents to put up 20,000 (2003) to 180,000 (2008) troops?

For the first two to three years of the war almost all troops did just live in tents, and a great many still do. Tents however are easily going to be 20 times more vulnerable to random small caliber mortar, rocket and RPG attacks vs. any kind of significant permanent building. The Army and Marines thus nabbed existing structures whenever possible for bases. Bad wiring is the least of your concerns when the enemy attacks you with indirect fire weapons almost every day as is the case at the massive base complex we have around the Baghdad airport this guy was stationed at.