Bob Kenyon – K8LJ
On
the April 18th 2007 ARES net, Rod Cook, the E.D. of our local Red
Cross Chapter, joined us as a guest speaker and gave an excellent overview of his
agency’s perspective on a potential HazMat incident. While Rod had previously
stated his main concern was such an incident, he further focused it to say a
chemical cloud was his greatest fear. While hazardous liquid spills are quite a
concern, they’re not as likely to quickly threaten the well being of
potentially a vast number of citizens. Rod stated that a chemical cloud is the
worst-case scenario for sheltering because it is a moving hazard, the type of
chemical needs to be determined quickly, and weather conditions have a big
impact because of the effect on wind direction, wind speed and the dissipation
rate. Identifying the chemical type rapidly is important because of the
possible effects on humans and knowing what symptoms to look for in case some
have been exposed. He also said that in such an incident, there are many
players to communicate with because of the number of agencies involved. [K8LJ
editorial comment: While Rod didn’t stress this point, I believe this is
obviously where we (ARES) could be of great value. Depending on the
circumstances that may have caused the incident, a tornado for example (rare
perhaps but possible), a critical part of the normal communications
infrastructure could be damaged, or at least over-loaded. As an example, thinking
back to the 12/2004 ice storm, we can all be thankful no HazMat incident
occurred during that time. The cell towers were ice covered and impaired (some
severely damaged); police, fire and other personnel couldn’t re-charge their
HTs, land lines were down, etc. …. It
was a real mess. Many lessons were learned from that but we never know what
challenge some future event might present.]
A
major goal of the Red Cross is to provide shelter to citizens during a time of
need. Rod mentioned that there are two principal means of accomplishing this.
The preferred method is to shelter outside the hazard zone when possible. This
affords the opportunity to provide decontamination stations and clothing needs
to those who may have come in contact with the hazardous material, as well as
comfort and other amenities to anyone affected by the incident. Rod stressed
the point that if you’re ordered to evacuate, please do so. I mentioned that my
family and I were involved in a HazMat cloud incident over 25 years ago and
were told to evacuate and we did. It was the proper thing to do. The second
method is to “shelter-in-place” in situations where there is insufficient time
for evacuation or not enough shelter space available. This does not mean
sealing off your entire home or workplace, but selecting a small interior room
with no or few windows and taking refuge there. You can find a Red Cross Fact
Sheet on shelter-in-place here:
http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/shelterinplace.html
It’s
comprehensive and covers how to do so whether at home, work, school or in your
vehicle.
[K8LJ editorial comment: Providing
shelter, whether external or in-place requires a significant coordination and
communications effort. This is also an area where we could be of significant
value. Let’s all think about what we can do to become better prepared for such
an occasion and discuss sometime soon.