Thousands of fire alarm boxes aren't working across the boroughs despite a federal court order requiring the boxes work for the deaf and hearing impaired, and one advocate is pushing the city to come up with a plan to fix those boxes. NY1's Arlene Borenstein filed the following report.
Broken fire alarm boxes are scattered across the five boroughs, by the thousands. Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano confirmed that last week.
"About a third of them are out of service," he said.
They are out despite a federal mandate requiring them to work, primarily for people with disabilities, such as the deaf and hearing impaired, who can't use a phone to report an emergency, but instead are taught to either use the boxes with pull handles or to tap on the push-button boxes that provide a dispatcher through a speaker.
"By removing this system, the city would be leaving our clients with no way to report emergencies from the street," said Attorney Robert Stulberg, who represented the Civic Association of the Deaf of New York City in 2011 when the city went to court to try and remove or change the permanent injunction ordered by a federal judge to maintain the boxes. The city's motion was denied.
"The judge found that the street alarm box system provides the only method by which the deaf and hearing impaired can report an emergency from the street," Stulberg said.
The alarm boxes could also be a life saver if cellphone service isn't working, according to Faye Smith, president of the Uniformed Fire Dispatchers Benevolent Association. She said that was proven during the September 11th attacks.
"The alarm boxes are hard-wired," Smith said. "They are hard-wired, so they were not affected at all."
She said that when Hurricane Sandy was close to making landfall, Breezy Point residents used one fire alarm box for help.
Cassano said the fire department had been trying to repair the boxes, but said Hurricane Sandy was a setback.
"Now we can make a concerted effort because most of that work on our firehouses has been completed," Cassano said.
With nearly 5,000 of the boxes out around the city, Stulberg said he's asked the city to investigate.
"We would want to know when and how the city plans to restore the out-of-service boxes," he said.
The FDNY says that residents concerned with the status of a fire alarm box near their home should call 311.
