Hotel Cecil Rooftop K-9 Search

[noodled1]

The dogs were used prior to the flushing of the system...

The dogs were used when she was still considered a missing person, the tanks and system were flushed after her body was found in the tank and hence no longer missing. There's no way we can connect the dogs missing her scent to the system being cleaned after she wass found.

As for the flooding we don't know if it was a break in the line or something as simple as a toilet overflowing. Another point as a I study the water system is the lower levels of the hotel 1-6 could be on a separate water system. Lower floors are quite often on a different system because it doesn't make sense to create a rooftop system to feed the lower floors that can easily be supplied by the city system. With a hotel of that size it would take more than 4 tanks to keep the system supplied...

Still reading up on this when or if I come up with a definitive answer I'll share

Lastly, assuming the noise and subsuquent flooding reported required the system to be flushed why wouldn't they have found the body then and not 2 weeks later. I cannot imagine a complete system flush and cleansing and nobody looked inside an empty tank

 

[AlphaWolf]

The dogs were used prior to the flushing of the system...

The dogs were used when she was still considered a missing person, the tanks and system were flushed after her body was found in the tank and hence no longer missing. There's no way we can connect the dogs missing her scent to the system being cleaned after she wass found.

As for the flooding we don't know if it was a break in the line or something as simple as a toilet overflowing. Another point as a I study the water system is the lower levels of the hotel 1-6 could be on a separate water system. Lower floors are quite often on a different system because it doesn't make sense to create a rooftop system to feed the lower floors that can easily be supplied by the city system. With a hotel of that size it would take more than 4 tanks to keep the system supplied...

Still reading up on this when or if I come up with a definitive answer I'll share

Thanks! Noodled1

- the more information about the tanks the better!

- I'm also trying to figure out more about the Hotel's water sytsem.

How often do the tanks get checked?...how often are the PH levels tested?

are they Manually chlorinated?...if so how often?

where is the outlet pipe located on the Potable tank?....near the bottom or near the upper level? ( the tank where the body was found seems to have a pump or valve on the top....the other tanks do not)

Obvious question....who is charge of maintaining the tanks?

 

[jetsetsam]

Go back to the previous page for my comments on the outlets in realtion to the pics posted there.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Go back to the previous page for my comments on the outlets in realtion to the pics posted there.

- The outlet could be near the bottom. I asked a few people ( who have some knowledge about tanks and they might work) They too said that the outlet pipe is usually near the bottom about 6" - 8" up...from the base of the tank.

But for a potable tank in a very old building, They also said that it could be reconfigured to siphon from the top levels of the tank to avoid causing more problems with water pressure ( from sediment damaging the system/pumps/filters)

- reasons I'm trying to get a clear picture on how this tank operates ( the one EL was found in)....because it is the only one with a large valve/pump or device on the top of the tank.

- The EL tank obviously is the one that supplied water to the Hotels rooms...are the other tanks for Fire suppression? or non potable use. If they all have an outlet pipe at the lower level of the tank...why is the EL tank the only one that has a device with copper pipe on top?

- also a few google searches came up with this.

The rooftop tanks store 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of water until it is needed in the building below. The upper portion of water is skimmed off the top for everyday use while the water in the bottom of the tank is held in reserve to fight fire. Fire insurance rates are normally lower in a community in which the water system has water towers.

http://www.fogonazos.es/2007/06/new-york-rooftop-water-tanks.html

The water used for drinking and bathing does not come from the bottom of the tank; rather, it is siphoned off the top.

http://cooperator.com/articles/202/1/Rooftop-Water-Tanks/Page1.html

also an interesting read...

,

water tanks have to be routinely maintained so they can continue to operate safely and efficiently. A decision to put off maintenance today will most certainly be regretted tomorrow, says Anita Sapirman, president of Saparn Realty, Inc., a Manhattan-based residential property management firm. When it comes to water tanks, preventive maintenance is the name of the game. The water tank requires regular attention to prevent the need for emergency interventions which can be enormously expensive.

EDIT: that is 6 - 8 inches from the base of the tank.

 

[Borris]

Oriah,

Thanks for sharing so much about handling search dogs. In case you're wondering, I would like to rule out suicide, but I do not believe the dog search has achieved it. I believe that if the dogs did not find her living scent inside the hotel, it would mean that it had been lost - mixed in the presence of other guest trails, housekeeping cleaners, vacuumed rooms, and swept/buffed hallways - and if they did not find her living scent on the roof, it either means it dissipated after time, or that they didn't check all of the surfaces of the roof where she may have traveled -on top of the equipment room roof, on top of the water tanks - for examples.

The reason I'm not ruling out suicide, is that LE said the lid to EL's tank was closed, which is about 15 feet off the ground and turned toward the inside of the complex. There appears IMO to be 2 vantage points to determine this: up the A-frame ladder that stood within the water tank complex, and up on the edge of the equipment room roof (accessed by a vertical ladder).

If the dogs need to get their noses close to the trail to pick up such a faint living scent, would this require their handlers to carry the SAR dogs up close to the ladder rungs as they climbed to place them on top of the water tanks or equipment room-roof (how much do they weigh)? Yet if they thought that her trail could have existed on top of the water tanks, I think they would have just opened the lids after placing the dog on the each tank. (Has anyone noticed paw prints on top of the water tanks?)

So maybe LE saw EL's lid after climbing up to these areas without the dogs, but if they were negligent and the dogs skipped these areas, then there exists the possibility that her living scent still existed in these places. I also think it's possible that they noticed the two outside tank lids were closed, which are viewable from the ground, and then assumed all the others were on.

So I am just not convinced as some, that this aspect of the case, the roof-top SAR search, rules out the possibility of suicide.

 

[Borris]

The dogs were used prior to the flushing of the system...

Lastly, assuming the noise and subsuquent flooding reported required the system to be flushed why wouldn't they have found the body then and not 2 weeks later. I cannot imagine a complete system flush and cleansing and nobody looked inside an empty tank

I would like to know if it is required for them to look into EL's tank in order to disinfect the system. That would be an easy way to target her killer, wouldn't it?

 

[noodled1]

I would like to know if it is required for them to look into EL's tank in order to disinfect the system. That would be an easy way to target her killer, wouldn't it?

Not following your line of thinking... can you elaborate?

 

[Borris]

I would like to know if it is required for them to look into EL's tank in order to disinfect the system. That would be an easy way to target her killer, wouldn't it?

Not following your line of thinking... can you elaborate?

If the system had to be flushed after flooding occurred on the 4th floor, and if it is required to look into EL's tank when flushing the system - we would know the suspect since the maintenance worker would have flushed the system without notifying authorities following the 4th floor flooding.

 

[AlphaWolf]

If the system had to be flushed after flooding occurred on the 4th floor, and if it is required to look into EL's tank when flushing the system - we would know the suspect since the maintenance worker would have flushed the system without notifying authorities following the 4th floor flooding.

- we are not sure what caused the flooding.( also...I don't think the sytem was flushed before the maintenance person found the body)

- if it was a backed up drain...flushing the sytem would not be needed.

- If it was a burst supply line, water to the whole building ( or at least the water supply on that system) would have to be shut off.

the plumber would then locate where the flooding is occuring, then open up the wall ( tear out sheetrock) to access the supply line.....and fix the joint ( re sweat/solder)

so water would be shut off until it was fixed. Has anyone heard about water bieng turned off at the Cecil before EL was found?

 

[Borris]

- we are not sure what caused the flooding.

so water would be shut off until it was fixed. Has anyone heard about water bieng turned off at the Cecil before EL was found?

Wouldn't this depend on the type of plumbing distribution network - for example, looped or branched?

I wouldn't conclude that because the water was shut off for EL that it would necessarily need to be shut off for pipe breakage in an old building such as Cecil. Maybe locally it was shut off - up to the next valve, and downstream from the breakage, where certain rooms would be closed-off to guests.

Would you happen to know for certain that an entire building water shut-off would be required?

 

[AlphaWolf]

Wouldn't this depend on the type of plumbing distribution network - for example, looped or branched?

I wouldn't conclude that because the water was shut off for EL that it would necessarily need to be shut off for pipe breakage in an old building such as Cecil. Maybe locally it was shut off - up to the next valve, and downstream from the breakage, where certain rooms would be closed-off to guests.

Would you happen to know for certain that an entire building water shut-off would be required?

- I am not certain the whole building would need to be shut off.( I am not certain on any building issues because I do not have any building schematics or I have never been inside to see any of the building)

- I am making statements off of the limited knowlege we have/my own opinions.

- From what I have heard/read/watched the Tank was on the roof.

City water>>>>>>Rooftop Tank>>>>>>Hotel Rooms.

- so we have multiple supply lines....1 to the tank....1 to the Hotel . If the one to the tank burst, that means the whole building is not getting water.

- If a Room/area had a burst supply pipe.....Plumber would need to shut off water to that Room/area.

- so again, we need to know how the plumbing system operates....From my own opinion.....

the Plumber would at mimimum be shutting off water to 10 - 15 rooms. ( assuming the Cecil has a good operating system with working/operational local shut off valves.


( from the reading about the Hotel....it has had ongoing plumbing issues..and may not be in the best working condition)

 

[Oriah]

Oriah,

Thanks for sharing so much about handling search dogs. In case you're wondering, I would like to rule out suicide, but I do not believe the dog search has achieved it. I believe that if the dogs did not find her living scent inside the hotel, it would mean that it had been lost - mixed in the presence of other guest trails, housekeeping cleaners, vacuumed rooms, and swept/buffed hallways - and if they did not find her living scent on the roof, it either means it dissipated after time, or that they didn't check all of the surfaces of the roof where she may have traveled -on top of the equipment room roof, on top of the water tanks - for examples.

The reason I'm not ruling out suicide, is that LE said the lid to EL's tank was closed, which is about 15 feet off the ground and turned toward the inside of the complex. There appears IMO to be 2 vantage points to determine this: up the A-frame ladder that stood within the water tank complex, and up on the edge of the equipment room roof (accessed by a vertical ladder).

If the dogs need to get their noses close to the trail to pick up such a faint living scent, would this require their handlers to carry the SAR dogs up close to the ladder rungs as they climbed to place them on top of the water tanks or equipment room-roof (how much do they weigh)? Yet if they thought that her trail could have existed on top of the water tanks, I think they would have just opened the lids after placing the dog on the each tank. (Has anyone noticed paw prints on top of the water tanks?)

So maybe LE saw EL's lid after climbing up to these areas without the dogs, but if they were negligent and the dogs skipped these areas, then there exists the possibility that her living scent still existed in these places. I also think it's possible that they noticed the two outside tank lids were closed, which are viewable from the ground, and then assumed all the others were on.

So I am just not convinced as some, that this aspect of the case, the roof-top SAR search, rules out the possibility of suicide.

SAR dogs of all types are trained to alert as close as possible to the source of the scent they are working. As close as they can physically get, barring dangerous situations where a handler needs to recall to avoid potential injury. So a trailing or tracking dog who may have followed Elisa's scent to the roof, would not need to be carried to the top of the water containers to alert- they likely would have alerted at the base of the one Elisa was found in, and then LE would have checked the water container. If it was an HRD dog and was brought specifically to search the roof and around the containers, they also should have alerted to the base of the container where Elisa was found.

The more I read about this case, the more confused I become.

When I was referring to the flushing of the system, I was actually not referring to the flushing after Elisa was found- but prior to her being found and after she went missing. The leak on the 3rd/4th floors seems to support that possibilty. At the very least, there was plumbing work done during the time she was missing- but before she was found. Is that correct?

 

[noodled1]

If the system had to be flushed after flooding occurred on the 4th floor, and if it is required to look into EL's tank when flushing the system - we would know the suspect since the maintenance worker would have flushed the system without notifying authorities following the 4th floor flooding.

Still not understanding. Why would they flush the system for a broken pipe or overflowing sink or whatever? That's water coming out of the system not introducing something foreign into the system.

Also. If the flooding was caused by a plugged drain of some form that's a completely different system all together.

 

[noodled1]

The leak on the 3rd/4th floors seems to support that possibilty. At the very least, there was plumbing work done during the time she was missing- but before she was found. Is that correct?

We don't know if there was plumbing work for sure. One resident said there was flooding on the 4th floor above him. But that's the only resident that said anything about it and there was never an official statement tying the flooding to the disappearance. We're not even sure if the flooding happened on the same day Elisa went missing.

 

[Oriah]

We don't know if there was plumbing work for sure. One resident said there was flooding on the 4th floor above him. But that's the only resident that said anything about it and there was never an official statement tying the flooding to the disappearance. We're not even sure if the flooding happened on the same day Elisa went missing.

Ok I see. But wouldn't it be likely that if there was an issue with plumbing- such as a leak or whatever- that someone would have to address it? It was addressed, correct? And it was addressed prior to Elisa being located?

I apologize, I may have been confusing again; I didn't clarify correctly re: the issue of the K9 search of the roof.

How would Elisa have been located 'wedged' at the bottom part of the tank if there was not pressure, timing, or air influx involved? Or a combination of all of the above?

 

[noodled1]

Ok I see. But wouldn't it be likely that if there was an issue with plumbing- such as a leak or whatever- that someone would have to address it? It was addressed, correct? And it was addressed prior to Elisa being located?

I apologize, I may have been confusing again; I didn't clarify correctly re: the issue of the K9 search of the roof.

How would Elisa have been located 'wedged' at the bottom part of the tank if there was not pressure, timing, or air influx involved? Or a combination of all of the above?

lol no problem, lots of unknown facts such as, we don't know if she was wedged in the bottom of the tank. "Wedged" is a term used by one MSM outlet on the day she was found. Looking at the pics of the tank, the size of the tank and the lack of plumbing or even places for plumbing on the interior I think assuming she was wedged in at the bottom would be a stretch.


All we truly know is she was found in the tank.

The TOD, how she got in there, the possible plumbing issues, clothes no clothes are all pure speculation at this time.

Nearly all of the things we speculate on came out in the first few hours of her being found. And as we all know early news reports can be misleading as the media scrambles to get a piece of the story.

For a true look at what we really know as facts check out the facts thread.

 

[Oriah]

lol no problem, lots of unknown facts such as, we don't know if she was wedged in the bottom of the tank. "Wedged" is a term used by one MSM outlet on the day she was found. Looking at the pics of the tank, the size of the tank and the lack of plumbing or even places for plumbing on the interior I think assuming she was wedged in at the bottom would be a stretch.


All we truly know is she was found in the tank.

The TOD, how she got in there, the possible plumbing issues, clothes no clothes are all pure speculation at this time.

Nearly all of the things we speculate on came out in the first few hours of her being found. And as we all know early news reports can be misleading as the media scrambles to get a piece of the story.

For a true look at what we really know as facts check out the facts thread.

Off to hunt down the facts thread. In the meantime- do we know the temp of the water? Coolants/coolant process used?

Still trying to process thoughts of how she could have been missed in the roof search (as reported by media and timeline.)

Also- still trying to figure out the combo of 'wedged' and 'decomposed' in the media reports; trying to look at the size of the tank and water pressure, as well as her size and the access points to the tank. None of this is making sense to me.
We are missing something big here.

 

[Oriah]

The lack of contamination in the water supply puzzles me. Would it indicate that her body in the tank was perhaps sealed in a plastic bag (or something else) and not in direct contact with the water and this is why the dogs didn't alert to her scent??

JMO

A plastic bag should not have prevented an HRD K9 from alerting to HR scent. Both the water container and something like a plastic bag are permeable, making scent available to the dog. (Of course we don't know what discipline the dog(s) used were trained in.) But no matter the discipline- scent would have been available to the dog.

Perplexed, your comment about not in contact with the water really made me think- what was the water level in the tank at the time she was found? Is it possible she was above the water line for several days?

 

[Conductor71]

SAR dogs of all types are trained to alert as close as possible to the source of the scent they are working. As close as they can physically get, barring dangerous situations where a handler needs to recall to avoid potential injury. So a trailing or tracking dog who may have followed Elisa's scent to the roof, would not need to be carried to the top of the water containers to alert- they likely would have alerted at the base of the one Elisa was found in, and then LE would have checked the water container. If it was an HRD dog and was brought specifically to search the roof and around the containers, they also should have alerted to the base of the container where Elisa was found.

I am confused over what tracking dogs can do and their limitations. I though that if the dog (let's assume it is not HR and AS trained) picked up a scent of EL in her room for example and the dog lost the scent say on the 14th floor and did not pick it up again on the roof, they would have not sensed the body. This means there were confounding odors or EL did not walk across the roof?

What if LAPD only used the fire door to enter the roof and not taken the dog over to that access point? Say EL entered the roof through a fire escape ladder so the dog had no trace of her when they searched the roof, would a tracking dog be able to pick up an air scent at the tank base if they were not on her trail when the SAR team entered the roof?

 

[Perplexed 123]

A plastic bag should not have prevented an HRD K9 from alerting to HR scent. Both the water container and something like a plastic bag are permeable, making scent available to the dog. (Of course we don't know what discipline the dog(s) used were trained in.) But no matter the discipline- scent would have been available to the dog.

Perplexed, your comment about not in contact with the water really made me think- what was the water level in the tank at the time she was found? Is it possible she was above the water line for several days?

It was reported that the tank was 3/4 full, I'm just looking for sources