TVC Fire Alarm evacuation

...which was also the BBC1 announcer's booth, of course.

Presumably the storms affected the power supply to parts of TVC then, or was it just that there was no one in to run a news gallery at that time of day back then? Anyone know? Calling Noggin

Didn't Philip Schofield accidentally broadcast the COW globe once during CBBC?

I certainly know that the reverse happened, with the BBC1 announcer forgetting to switch from camera back to clock, so they appeared in vision (in near darkness, of course) introducing the six o'clock news.

From what I recall they did have power but most people couldn't get into work at Television Centre that morning - blocked roads, railways closed, etc.

Yup, it happened, I think it was in the early days of Childrens BBC IVC and his boss told him that he was not aloowed to touch the button which played out the globe otherwise otherwise he would have been in serious trouble. Anyway he did this, the sound went off and the bosses told him it was the funniest thing they saw in a long time.

I only know this as it has been on TV Nightmares god knows how many times, with Philip explaining it.

I think there's a clip of it at TV and Radio Bits.

Was the news operation not based at Lime Grove at the time of the storm, and that was without power but TVC (or at least pres) was operational?

IIRC, this was after the days of Lime Grove, but the problem was that when they got the temporary power going it crashed most of the smarter electronics. I know there were several minutes when all they could get to work in the BBC1 gallery was the COW ident.

Eventually, News sent a reader up to the broom cupboard to do a bulletin, but he couldn't work the mixer, so he read the news with one of the announcers (Roseanne McMillan, I think) hiding under the desk with one hand sticking up to vision mix. Happy days!

Can any BBC people in here tell me roughly how long it takes for the whole of TV Centre to evacuate if there really IS a fire? I'd guess it might take quite a while.....

Being such a big building it will probably be zoned so only the affected area would be evacuated?

Correct. Infact new system since the problem on Monday - only the floor that the alarm is activated on will be evacuated until the fire is proved to be real. That's in the main block, other buildings on site do not have to evacuate.

Problem? I think I've missed something...

Well it's all in the thread, why don't you try reading it