Great American Building Downtown : High-Rise Workers Flee Sparks, Smoke

The Great American Building downtown was evacuated for the second time in two weeks as sparks erupted from an electrical panel and smoke poured into offices Monday afternoon.

Startled office workers on the second and third floors reported hearing loud popping and crackling noises about 2:20 p.m. and seeing sparks fly from behind the closed doors of an electrical control room situated between the two floors, near the elevators.

More than 1,000 workers were safely evacuated from the 24-story building at 600 B St. by 3:10 p.m., and no injuries were reported, Stewart said. Six fire engines and more than 100 firefighters responded to the alarm, but were unable to get near the source of the problem for at least an hour as the high-voltage arcing continued.

“There are 8,000 or 9,000 volts behind that door . . . it looks like the 4th of July in there,” said one firefighter, who asked not to be identified.

“I heard a big boom and the next thing I knew it was glowing underneath the door and sparks were coming out,” said Pacific Bell employee Greg Henkels, who was working on the telephone system on the third floor.

Rumbling, Flashing Lights

A Great American employee on the third floor, who declined to give her name, said, “You could hear the rumbling and see lights flashing behind the door.”

Other employees reported heavy smoke as far up as the 15th floor, and said they escaped down darkened stairwells with the aid of flashlights. “It was pitch dark in there,” said Great American employee Frank Gessner, who was evacuated from the ninth floor. “When the lights first started going out, there was a big power surge, then smoke filled the room.”

A fire did erupt briefly on the third floor, but was contained within the conduits that carry the electrical wires, Fire Department spokesman Larry Stewart said.

About 4 p.m., San Diego Gas & Electric crews cut power to the building. Power was also briefly turned off in the adjacent Symphony Hall and Symphony Towers project at 7th Avenue and B Street, but was turned back on as soon as SDG&E; workers were able to isolate the bank building from the rest of the system, SDG&E; spokesman Dave Vaughn said.

Monday night, fire officials and electricians were still working to determine what caused the short circuit in the electrical control room. The high-voltage arcing apparently ignited insulation near the electrical panels, causing smoke that triggered an automatic alarm to the Fire Department.

Although the extent of the damage was unknown Monday evening, Great American spokesman Ken Ulrich urged office workers in the bank building to plan on a normal workday today. Ulrich said the electricians, who started making repairs about 5 p.m., expect to have electricity working in the building by 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. today.

Emergency Procedures

Coincidentally, designated volunteer “fire wardens” on each floor of the bank building met Monday morning to discuss emergency evacuation procedures, because of a power outage that necessitated an evacuation two weeks ago, Ulrich said.

“Our fire safety procedure worked perfectly today,” Ulrich said. “We had the building about 50% evacuated by the time the Fire Department got here.”

Flashlights distributed at the Monday morning meeting were later used to light the stairwells as employees left the building. An emergency generator, which normally activates a backup lighting system in case of fire, was shut down because it was believed the generator might be feeding the electrical problem, Fire Marshal Jim Sewell said.

Sewell said there were electrical repairs going on in the building early Monday, but he said it was not known whether the repair work was related to the later electrical problems.

On Oct. 7, a generator in the basement of the bank building blew out, causing a daylong power outage and forcing the evacuation of the building.

Ulrich said that incident was the result of “a workman who did the wrong thing” and was unrelated to Monday’s mishap.

A spate of false alarms at the building in recent months was also unrelated to any problems within the electrical system, and was believed to have been caused by someone inside the building who intentionally pulled fire alarms on several occasions, said building manager Colin Stillwagen.

Ulrich and Stillwagen praised the employees’ emergency evacuation procedure, which they said contributed to the safe and orderly way the building was cleared out.

Ulrich said the employees held a fire drill just two months ago, prompted by a May 4 fire at the First Interstate Bank in Los Angeles in which one person was killed. In that fire, millions of dollars of damage was attributed to the lack of a sprinkler system.

Lacks Sprinklers

The Great American Bank building, which has a fire sprinkler system in the basement and first floor only, will be one of 55 older high-rises downtown affected by a new city ordinance under consideration by the City Council. Although the city has required sprinklers and other fire-safety accommodations in the 71 high-rise buildings built or planned since 1976, many older high-rises in the city have no such safety system.

The proposed ordinance, endorsed by Sewell at an Oct. 10 council meeting, would require all buildings more than 75 feet tall to be fitted with sprinklers, at an estimated cost to the building owners of $145 million. The ordinance will require owners of the older high-rises to submit plans for retrofitting their buildings with sprinkler systems to the fire chief by Jan. 1, 1990. A final vote by the council will be taken next week.