Consumer Level Hazardous Materials Events

Consumer Level Hazardous Materials Events...A New Way of Thinking.

When you hear "hazardous materials" what comes to mind? Toxic materials housed in some giant factory? A tanker truck overturned on a busy highway? Level 'A' protection and special response teams? If so, you're not alone. The scenes mentioned are what most people think of in terms of hazmat or toxic chemicals.

Its time to change the way we think.

I'd like to introduce you to the concept of Consumer Level Hazardous Materials (CLHM )situations. These are situations where there is a creative use or misuse of chemicals that can be found in any grocery store, do-it-yourself center, or your local drug store. CLHM's can be accidental or intentional. Accidental events, as the title implies, is the unintentional use or misuse of chemical products. Examples of unintentional CLHM events can range from simply mixing two different cleaning products; bleach and an acid of some type, to produce chlorine gas. CLHM's can also be used to carry out an intentional act such as Homemade Chemical Bombs or Chemical Assisted Suicide.

To illustrate the CLHM situations, lets look at this case study -

A homeowner is attempting to clear a clogged drain in his kitchen sink. Over the course of three days, he uses several consumer level products from his local grocery store. None of the products work. Indesparation the homeowner now visits the local builders labyrinth (big box do-it-yourself store) for something stronger...still, no results.

Finally, he pours the remainder of all the drain cleaning products into the drain at the same time. In this case, he used Liquid Plumr, Rooto Professional Drain Opener, Comet, liquid bleach, and some sulphuric acid for good measure.  The mixture reacts resulting in a severe inhalation hazard and the homeowner dies. His wife and son are overcome. Responder were called for trouble breathing and entered the structure as anyone might. They are also exposed to the fumes.

This situation actually took place.

Lets take a look at the CLHM involved and get a picture of how bad this is:

• Liquid Plumr = Sodium Hypoclorite and Lye
• Bleach and Acid (from comet) = chlorine gas
• Bleach and Ammonia = Chloramines
• Lye, an oxydizer = caustic burns, defatting/soapification injury
• Take a deep breath
  

All this from products bought in any grocery or department store.  Until next week, just imagine what we could do if we wanted to really hurt somebody...

Survival Basics for Civilians and Responders

Survival basics for your car will keep you going and improve response.

Hundreds of motorists were stranded on the New York State  Thruway this week when a tractor-trailer jackknifed blocking the road during a snowstorm. The storm eventually dumped over 2 feet of snow in the region south of Buffalo, New York. Hundreds of occupants of personal vehicles and commercial vehicles were stranded without any means of escape during the storm. Many were stranded for over 24 hours. Eventually, local fire department and police crews were able to make their way down the miles long lanes of stranded motorists to deliver extra fuel, food, and to assess the situation.

Criticism of the New York State Thruway authority has been building since the event on December 1, 2010. One of the criticisms was that the authority allowed traffic to enter the block area of roadway during the storm even though they were aware of the traffic jam. Another shortcoming has been described as the lack of a plan to deal with such emergencies and allowing the area to go on monitored and not being able to remove the truck blocking the lanes of travel.

This event has important emergency management and preparedness implications for us. First, we have to remember that no response will be successful if the public involved has not done at least some preparedness. In this case, it appears that few if any of the motorists in either private or commercial vehicles had any emergency supplies. Most complained of being cold yet did not have any spare clothing with them… some did not even appear to be dressed appropriately for the environment found in western New York this time of year. Another important thing to consider is the length of time it took traditional responders (police and local fire apartment) to get to those trapped in the snow. Most accounts indicate that it was over 12 hours before rescuers were able to make their way into the traffic jam to deliver supplies and assess the situation. One source was quoted as saying the reason for this delay was because this area of roadway is not routinely monitored by any jurisdiction.

Another frustration expressed by stranded motorists was that the responders were not able to give them any information on the situation. While this may be difficult to do, we should make every attempt to craft a generic statement that will give the civilians some information. That statement could be as simple as which radio station to tune into to get information and updates. A common misconseption is that if we inform the public of the actual situation they will panic. This is clearly a false belief. Information helps keep people calm and promotes compliance with instruction. Disaster research shows that when people are poorly informed, feel trapped, and hopeless that they begin to panic and make poor decisions.

Once again we have a local example of Optimism Bias in action. That is, it won't happen to me… if it happens to me, someone will be there to rescue me. We have to take measures to protect ourselves and be able to be self-sufficient (even rudimentary effort would help) in cases where rescue or assistance may be delayed.

Here are my tips for survival when stranded:
 
First, be sure to keep your car's fuel tank greater than half-full. Keeping your vehicles fuel tank  above half full or better will help make sure you can navigate detours if you're route is blocked. Keeping that much fuel in your vehicle will also allow you to run the engine for much longer in order to stay warm. It's important to keep in mind also that you should run the vehicle's motor only intermittently when stranded… just enough to warm up the interior every 30 to 45 minutes. On this point we should also mention the need for good ventilation in your vehicle… keeping a window cracked open to allow for fresh air and periodically checking the exhaust pipe to ensure it has not become blocked with snow or debris. Failing to do either of those could result in exposure to automobile exhaust and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Second keep a survival kit in your car. It does not have to be elaborate put should contain a few simple items. A hat, gloves, extra socks, and a pair of boots would be helpful as well as a warm blanket. It's best also to have some shelf stable snacks available. Candy bars, energy bars, and those little crackers and cheese combinations will work just fine. Along with something to eat you should try to keep something to drink in your vehicle as well.

Third, communications is key. Although we all have cellular phones these days it won't do us much good if the battery runs out. Therefore, keeping your cell phone charger (the car adapter type) in the vehicle will go a long way to letting people know where you are and getting information… especially if you were stranded for a prolonged period of time. Another important part of communications is your communications plan. Although we take traveling for granted it's important to let people know when were leaving and when we plan to arrive at our next destination. This is especially helpful when traveling during inclement weather seasons or in unfamiliar areas.

And finally, don't forget the shovel and salt. Keeping a small shovel in your vehicle may mean the difference between being stranded and effecting a self rescue. Also keeping a small bag of sand, gravel, or rock salt may be able to provide the needed traction to get yourself unstuck.

Although I recommend a shelter in place approach to surviving these situations, there may come a time where you have to decide to attempt self evacuation. The decision to leave safe shelter and walk out into a storm is not one to make lightly. You must consider your level of fitness, your clothing, your hydration and nutrition status, and the environment before attempting self rescue.



Planning and preparedness.
For those of us responsible for responding to such events there are several keys to successful operations. The first, of course, is pre-incident planning. If you have stretches of highway in your area you can find yourself dealing with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stranded motorists in any season… from any cause. There is no excuse for not pre-planning your response with various size highway incidents involving multiple patients. Your threat assessment is a major part of the pre-planning process and should include natural as well as man-made events.

As a traditional responder you'll need to consider additional points:
First, what personnel and resources will I be able to bring to this situation and how long  will deployment take. In these large-scale events deployment of resources is often best done only after sufficient personnel, supplies, and equipment have been staged to support the effort. Although rapid triage crews may be effective, the main thrust of the response should only take place when all the pieces are together.

Secondly, you must make provisions early on for emergency incident rehabilitation. Your responders will be providing assessment and care in very difficult environmental conditions. Appropriate rehab and rotation of responders will go a long way to maximizing efficiency and extending crew viability.

Third, you'll have to make some difficult decisions as to shelter in place versus attempt evacuation. As noted above there are several conditions that have to be taken into account before people are moved from an area of relative safety into a hazard area.


This post will also appear in Mitigation Journal at www.mitigationjournal.org

What if your department had a Wikileak?

Food for thought...when your internal secrets become public.

 Would you try to stop it? Would you try to prevent your deep, dark, agency secrets from becoming public? We're all familiar with the current wiki leak situation that's causing a stir around the globe. But what if this Internet distribution of sensitive information came home to roost in your emergency service?

 How confident are you that your service is properly collecting Medicaid or Medicare dollars, tax dollars, or is correctly billing for services? How would a wiki week on your billing practices or other revenue-generating activities be seen by your community?

How about your policies and procedures? Would they stand up to public scrutiny if to be suddenly made available to your general public? What about your quality assurance practices? It would be very interesting for the public to find out about some of the well-kept secrets and emergency service surrounding the quality and delivery of that service.

So, while the world is focused on the wiki leak induced hysteria over secret documents, take a few minutes to examine your internal structure… from billing to quality assurance… and ask yourself how would we measure up if all this got out?

Would you shine, or get a shiner?

Homeland Security Threat System to Retire

Color Code Homeland Security Advisory System to Retire...Well, maybe. 

The Department of Homeland Security is considering a retirement of that ridiculous color-coded threat assessment system. According to a number of mainstream media reports, this system which has been in place since 2002, is now out dated. You may recall that this threat level color code system was instituted by a Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3 (HSPD three) and has come under scrutiny and criticism ever since. So with this system gone, we have to ask; what will replace it.

My opinion is that we should take the entire color code style assessment system and replace it with the old “test pattern” that used to see when a TV station went off the air… for those of you that remember the days when television stations actually stopped broadcasting at night.

Why do I say that? Simply because no one paid attention to the color code system since its inception. Worse than that, often times the system was misleading and failed to provide any type of useful information to the public. But while we are bashing the terrorism threat color code system lets not forget that there are other systems that are equally ignored by the public like fire alarms and public alerting sirens. These other systems have a few things in common with the color code threat level system… that common thread is: irrelevance.

 And here is why I think the Homeland security advisory system is irrelevant: it does not do what it was designed to do… it never did. And worse, those other types of alerting systems suffer the same level of "ignore it and it will go away" attitude from the public.

 While we don't know what type of system (if any) will replace this color code terrorism threat thing, I do have an opinion as to what the next generation of threat alerting system should do:

First, any warning system should engage the public with meaningful intelligence and data.  The information the system provides has to make sense to the public and provide some type of concrete information.

Second, a warning system has to define an action. It has to underscore the level of preparedness that should be taken for each level of warning… it has to call us to action. Think about the last time you were in a public place in the fire alarm went off. Perhaps you've been in a restaurant when the fire alarm system activated. When in public, how often do you see people actually leave the location when the fire alarm goes off? Often times you'll see people continue about their business while the fire alarm rings. To be effective a warning system has to change behavior.

Third, an alerting system or warning system has to inform the public when to de-escalate or stand down from a threat. Unsubstantiated and prolonged periods of increased vigilance lead to sensory burn out and decrease the efficiency and effectiveness of future warnings. A warning system has to have a defined end point–just the opposite of telling people what to do when the threat level increases or the alarm goes off, we have to tell them what we want them to do when the threat has been relieved.