Saturday, September 08, 2007

Emergency sheds or public storage?

Well, word has gotten out that the District just installed emergency sheds at every location and filled them with emergency supplies. Unfortunately, one can never rely upon the contents being inside during an emergency because looting has become prolific. A few simple screws are all that stand between saving student lives during a crisis and mischievous kids building a tree fort.

In 2005, the District, under more competent leadership and direction, scoped a steel structure that was secure and could hold its own against prospective looters. Of course, in the spirit of tossing out anything and everything scoped by intelligent predecessors, these structures were re-scoped to reduce the per unit cost. In the process, structural integrity and adequate security were eliminated and now money will forever be poured into keeping the equipment inside stocked to a usable level.

Saving a few capital fund dollars today while blowing a wad of general fund dollars day after day, for the rest of forever. Another triumph in facilities management.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Typical American profile: buy a huge truck and spend a fortune keeping the petrol tanks full.

Dylan Bampton
Noosa Heads, Queensland
Australia

Anonymous said...

Just have the custodian check the shed each hour, on the hour, with all of the free time they have. That way, when there is an emergency and all of the supplies are gone, the District will know what time they were stolen.

Anonymous said...

Is there a reason why the storage containers can't be locked? Just curious.....

ESD15.org said...

The manner in which these sheds are constructed makes them incredibly easy to access through the outer tin walls. I suppose, in an emergency (or if you couldn't locate the key), you could just loosen a few screws and peel back the wrapper to expose the goodies inside.

Anonymous said...

Did the Capital Projects Office have a hand in the specs? Sounds like something they would do. They probably want to save money for their special order expensive European light fixtures, large panes of glass that can’t be fixed by our glazier, and another fireplace that can’t be used because of a bench they installed that uses the hearth glass as a back rest.