LABORATORY FIRE EXACTS COSTLY TOLL

摘要

Eight months after a fire on Oct. 19, 1996, destroyed a laboratory of chemistry professor Stephen F. Martin at the University of Texas, Austin, and damaged his two adjoining labs, university officials are stoically accepting the financial consequences of the unfortunate event. Instead of spending a budgeted $6.2 million on scheduled renovations to a section of the chemistry building, the university will spend $30.2 million to retrofit the entire building to meet contemporary fire-safety and building-code standards. The final tally has dwarfed the estimated $400,000 it would have cost to replace the fire-damaged labs.