1) I thought the alarm went off shortly after the chlorine was released? Is there anything to suggest the perpetrator pulled the alarm preemptively?
I'm not criticizing the staff or evacuation process, nobody was expecting a gas attack. This is unheard of, at any con. We know better now, planning for gas attacks is something we can do. Having people panic about a fire could cause hyperventilation, definitely not something you want with chlorine in the air. My respect to the staff members who went around banging on doors, this was incredibly dangerous and I hope they're all ok. We can't let this happen again.
Still, an attacker releasing chlorine in the stairwell is probably going to pull the alarm, to get furs into the stairwell. Being a commercial building, I guess it is nontrivial to cancel the alarm?
2) I think most people are smart enough to associate a bleach smell with chlorine gas, but nobody was expecting to find chlorine at a convention. Expectation bias is a real thing, hotels get cleaned a lot, what's unusual about a bleach smell? When the alarms went off, people were expecting fumes from the fire. Some people were actually saying they could see smoke, before they knew about the chlorine. I've had this happen to me elsewhere, it's no joke.
You're right, it's difficult to determine all explosive gases from the smell, that's if they even have a smell at all. Natural gas, as initially reported, should be easy to tell apart from chlorine because of the distinctive smell added to it. A natural gas leak requires a special process too, I'm not even sure if it's safe to activate the alarms because the danger of an electrical spark. This is a good reason there should be explicit PA announcements. Explicit, meaning clear. Not the other meaning.
We can't protect against every possibility, we need to focus on the most practical attacks. Someone could easily break a natural gas line, or they could launch another poison gas attack. Is it likely that someone will launch an attack using a different explosive gas? I honestly don't know, what do you think? The Hyatt, and most hotels actually are big enough to make this impossible in the open areas. You would need several large gas cylinders, someone will notice you bringing those into the con. Someone could probably blow up their room with a modest size cylinder, they might be able to initiate a building collapse or at least hurt those in neighboring rooms. It would be extremely risky for the attacker, they would need to register for the con and get a room, this would leave enough evidence to find them. I can see someone setting off a stink bomb in their room as a prank, but not blowing their room up. Then again a month ago, I couldn't see anyone gassing furries.
My gut feeling is that any gas attack is likely to be poisonous rather than explosive. It's really much safer to get onto the balcony, or even stick your head out of an open window, than to try and evacuate. How long can someone hold their breath for, especially if they are in a panic? Less than a minute? I don't know of any hotels where you can evacuate your room in under a minute, this means you are going to breathe the gas if you try and evacuate. Of course as soon as firefighters arrive, they can be evacuated with gas masks or ladders, but my gut feeling is screaming loudly that the best thing to do in the event of poison gas is to stay in your room and get fresh air.
I am genuinely amazed that we didn't end up with a pile of dead furs in that stairwell, if you'll excuse me being so direct. Accidents involving chlorine releases have killed a lot of people in enclosed spaces, exactly like this. It's so perverse this attack was done in an evacuation stairwell, I don't think it can be called a failed prank for this reason. We are so so lucky everything worked in our favor and there was only one chlorine device.
What would we have done if the attacker had targeted all stairwells, with a larger device in each? If everyone followed exactly the same evacuation process, likely we could have been looking at hundreds if not thousands of collapsed and dying furs in the stairwells. Think about the reality of that for a moment.
I think it has been long enough now to talk about this stuff, without any sensationalism. I'm still scared that an attack will happen again, but I'm not about to toss my cookies anymore. If there is anything we can do to find the perpetrator, clear any innocent furs, and reduce the damage from another attack, we need to put most our energy into it.
Sonious, I like your suggestion to go down one floor before taking the elevators. Furs should be encouraged to take the stairs anyway to reduce the elevator load, even going up or down one floor less means less elevator congestion. If a con wished to enforce this policy, placing an overlay sticker over the elevator buttons blocking the odd numbered floors would be enough.
tl;dr: I'm thinking aloud. Also, trying to clear my head about this painful incident. I still stand by my suggestion of doing everything possible to prevent evacuating furs directly into poisoned stairwells, and trying to compile all the video from those last few hours.
Murry Christmas to all furs, keep those paws warm!
1) I thought the alarm went off shortly after the chlorine was released? Is there anything to suggest the perpetrator pulled the alarm preemptively?
I'm not criticizing the staff or evacuation process, nobody was expecting a gas attack. This is unheard of, at any con. We know better now, planning for gas attacks is something we can do. Having people panic about a fire could cause hyperventilation, definitely not something you want with chlorine in the air. My respect to the staff members who went around banging on doors, this was incredibly dangerous and I hope they're all ok. We can't let this happen again.
Still, an attacker releasing chlorine in the stairwell is probably going to pull the alarm, to get furs into the stairwell. Being a commercial building, I guess it is nontrivial to cancel the alarm?
2) I think most people are smart enough to associate a bleach smell with chlorine gas, but nobody was expecting to find chlorine at a convention. Expectation bias is a real thing, hotels get cleaned a lot, what's unusual about a bleach smell? When the alarms went off, people were expecting fumes from the fire. Some people were actually saying they could see smoke, before they knew about the chlorine. I've had this happen to me elsewhere, it's no joke.
You're right, it's difficult to determine all explosive gases from the smell, that's if they even have a smell at all. Natural gas, as initially reported, should be easy to tell apart from chlorine because of the distinctive smell added to it. A natural gas leak requires a special process too, I'm not even sure if it's safe to activate the alarms because the danger of an electrical spark. This is a good reason there should be explicit PA announcements. Explicit, meaning clear. Not the other meaning.
We can't protect against every possibility, we need to focus on the most practical attacks. Someone could easily break a natural gas line, or they could launch another poison gas attack. Is it likely that someone will launch an attack using a different explosive gas? I honestly don't know, what do you think? The Hyatt, and most hotels actually are big enough to make this impossible in the open areas. You would need several large gas cylinders, someone will notice you bringing those into the con. Someone could probably blow up their room with a modest size cylinder, they might be able to initiate a building collapse or at least hurt those in neighboring rooms. It would be extremely risky for the attacker, they would need to register for the con and get a room, this would leave enough evidence to find them. I can see someone setting off a stink bomb in their room as a prank, but not blowing their room up. Then again a month ago, I couldn't see anyone gassing furries.
My gut feeling is that any gas attack is likely to be poisonous rather than explosive. It's really much safer to get onto the balcony, or even stick your head out of an open window, than to try and evacuate. How long can someone hold their breath for, especially if they are in a panic? Less than a minute? I don't know of any hotels where you can evacuate your room in under a minute, this means you are going to breathe the gas if you try and evacuate. Of course as soon as firefighters arrive, they can be evacuated with gas masks or ladders, but my gut feeling is screaming loudly that the best thing to do in the event of poison gas is to stay in your room and get fresh air.
I am genuinely amazed that we didn't end up with a pile of dead furs in that stairwell, if you'll excuse me being so direct. Accidents involving chlorine releases have killed a lot of people in enclosed spaces, exactly like this. It's so perverse this attack was done in an evacuation stairwell, I don't think it can be called a failed prank for this reason. We are so so lucky everything worked in our favor and there was only one chlorine device.
What would we have done if the attacker had targeted all stairwells, with a larger device in each? If everyone followed exactly the same evacuation process, likely we could have been looking at hundreds if not thousands of collapsed and dying furs in the stairwells. Think about the reality of that for a moment.
I think it has been long enough now to talk about this stuff, without any sensationalism. I'm still scared that an attack will happen again, but I'm not about to toss my cookies anymore. If there is anything we can do to find the perpetrator, clear any innocent furs, and reduce the damage from another attack, we need to put most our energy into it.
Sonious, I like your suggestion to go down one floor before taking the elevators. Furs should be encouraged to take the stairs anyway to reduce the elevator load, even going up or down one floor less means less elevator congestion. If a con wished to enforce this policy, placing an overlay sticker over the elevator buttons blocking the odd numbered floors would be enough.
tl;dr: I'm thinking aloud. Also, trying to clear my head about this painful incident. I still stand by my suggestion of doing everything possible to prevent evacuating furs directly into poisoned stairwells, and trying to compile all the video from those last few hours.
Murry Christmas to all furs, keep those paws warm!