Massacre in Las Vegas

Quote: Wizard

Trivia Time

What was the deadliest day in Las Vegas history?

Without googling it, I would say the MGM fire which was about 40 years ago.

Quote: Pacomartin

Without googling it, I would say the MGM fire which was about 40 years ago.

That is correct. 85 fatalities.

Quote: Wizard

That is correct. 85 fatalities.

All of them smoke inhalation. Changes were made without new legislation: positive pressurization, water sprinklers in the casino overhead despite all the electronics, central annunciator boards. It was really just a small electrical fire in an electric motor inside the Deli area. It spread. Once it spread to a place with fire sprinkers, it was out by the third sprinkler.

The greatest boon was a routine "open door alarm" at a room several feet away from the sniper's lair. The unarmed security guard sent to check out this electronic indication of a door that had been open too long must have heard the sound of gunfire and certainly appeared on all the shooter's cameras. The guard was shot in the leg and transmitted the room number. It appears that this early awareness of the location and what the shooter must have thought was a swat team about to make entry was a sufficient distraction that ended the carnage.

Texas Tower was a sniping incident but one of the early targets was the subject of five rounds. This incident allowed additional people to scatter and seek cover. Vegas was a Spray and Pray type incident but once the shooter lost focus on the crowd and paid attention to the hotel room door and corridor things got much better for the stampeding crowd.

I saw only a brief glimpse on the news footage but it seems at one time that a light tow truck was pressed into service as an ambulance.

Anyone know if blinding searchlights were available to stagehands but not used as such?

Quote: Fleastiff

All of them smoke inhalation. Changes were made without new legislation: positive pressurization, water sprinklers in the casino overhead despite all the electronics, central annunciator boards. It was really just a small electrical fire in an electric motor inside the Deli area. It spread. Once it spread to a place with fire sprinkers, it was out by the third sprinkler.

I saw some story on it and the gist was that the fire inspectors were amazed at how important sprinklers turned out to be. Even though it was 1980, it is interesting if you watch the tape how old and 1970s everything looks.

Guest rooms didn't even have smoke alarms then. I started carrying a battery operated smoke alarm in my suitcase when I travelled after the Vegas hotel fires.

Quote: kenarman

Guest rooms didn't even have smoke alarms then. I started carrying a battery operated smoke alarm in my suitcase when I travelled after the Vegas hotel fires.

One family received a smoke alarm as a Christmas gift and despite the packaging and gift wrapping it woke them up early one morning when the Christmas tree caught fire. Not quite as early a warning if there had been no packaging but early enough to rouse them with a strange beeping noise.

The bad thing about room alarms now is that the noise level is so high it will wake a drunk but that makes everyone else unable to think straight or communicate with others in the room.

Quote: kenarman

Guest rooms didn't even have smoke alarms then. I started carrying a battery operated smoke alarm in my suitcase when I travelled after the Vegas hotel fires.

Four of us were at a little get-together, old college buddies. Few smoking cigars so we covered the smoke detector lest it go off. Fifteen minutes later they are banging on the door. Seems if you do that the front desk gets some kind of alarm, so they must be pretty good now.

In college, some dorm residents found that you could set the smoke detectors off with squirt guns. So, quite a few 3am alarms from pranksters.

If I remember correctly, the grumblings about beating the s*** out of anyone they caught doing it from other groggy sleep deprived residents ended the practice after a week or so.

Quote: Fleastiff

The greatest boon was a routine "open door alarm" at a room several feet away from the sniper's lair. The unarmed security guard sent to check out this electronic indication of a door that had been open too long must have heard the sound of gunfire and certainly appeared on all the shooter's cameras. The guard was shot in the leg and transmitted the room number. It appears that this early awareness of the location and what the shooter must have thought was a swat team about to make entry was a sufficient distraction that ended the carnage.

Some have questioned how long it "should" have taken for the sound of gunfire to have been tracked to a specific room.

I've assumed that the top floors are the super expensive ones with walls as thick as my head and all the sound dampening materials available. With large suites the doors must be rather far apart from each other. So its unlikely anyone would have called in a noise complaint simply that except for someone actually passing by in the corridor there would have been no noise, particularly if his early shots actually involved the AK-47 being extended outside the broken window.