Pop Cans Out, Techie Bells and Whistles In for Detroit Firefighters

After viral coverage of the Detroit Fire Department’s technology predicament – including a segment on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” that panned the pop can and fax machine alert – techies are stepping up with offers to help. (Photo: Comedy Central)

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The squeaky wheel – or in this case, the screw-filled Faygo can – gets the grease.

Motivated to step in after Detroit became the butt of a national joke over its pop can and fax machine fire alarm system, a crude system put together with everything but the metaphorical kitchen sink, tech companies from across the country are offering to Motor City firefighters into the 21st Century.

The grease was provided by a widely shared Detroit Free Press article and video that demonstrated how the crude fire alarm system worked – basically, a screw-filled, Detroit-branded Faygo can makes racket when it’s knocked over by when a sheet of paper pops out of the fax machine. The noise signals firefighters to manually ring the fire bell.

“ ... I was like, ‘Wow! What if they don’t hear that can drop?’ ” – Hunter Giambra, techie

Resulting viral coverage included a “Hometown Heroes” segment on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central.

George Faucher, the president and CEO of Naples, FL-based Corre.Log, told the Detroit Free Press he thought a TV report he saw of the makeshift system “was a joke at first.” He discovered it wasn’t, thought Detroit deserved better and offered to install a $10,000 system that, though not specifically engineered with fire station needs in mind, is “at least a thousand times better than a Coke can falling over.”

Another Florida tech entrepreneur, 21-year-old Hunter Giambra of Tampa, was alarmed by the makeshift system and wants to help, too. “When I saw that (video), I was like, ‘Wow! What if they don’t hear that can drop?’ ” Giambra said.

Faucher and Giambra were among seven companies that contacted either the fire department or the Free Press with offers to help the Detroit Fire Department modernize last-century technology.

“This is not brain surgery,” Faucher said. “This is something that we can probably help them with very quickly and easily ... and certainly bring them more into the new millennium.”

Deputy Fire Commissioner John Berlin said he was “overwhelmed” by the offers to help coming from across the country.

“What I was humbled by was that there was nothing negative said about the city of Detroit, or the bankruptcy,” he said. “It was simply that they wanted to help. And that set me back a little bit. It humbled me.”

Officials are currently gathering information from companies offering to help to help Detroit out of its hard times.