PIFFARD, NY — Cathy Shaffer lives on Nations Road in Geneseo, about two miles from the Arkema plant, located across the Genesee River on Route 63 in the Town of York.

At 5:37 a.m. last July 17, she heard a thundering sound.

“I’ve never heard anything like that in my life,” she relates. “It literally shook me in my bed – like a bomb had exploded in my back yard.”

A few minutes later, a Sheriff’s deputy was at her door, informing Shaffer she must immediately evacuate from her home; that an explosion had occurred at the Arkema plant and a vapor cloud was headed her direction. Every household on Nations Road received the order.

Shortly thereafter, the officer returned to inform everyone that the evacuation order was rescinded. As it turned out, Shaffer and her neighbors were only minimally inconvenienced by the explosion.

But the experience has left Shaffer with lingering questions and concerns relating to what she and others should do in the event of another emergency at Arkema.

Schaffer spoke out in a letter published by The County News and forwarded to Arkema. Consequently, she was invited to a company meeting where the accident was discussed.

During the course of the meeting, Shaffer learned what happened and what apparently went wrong to cause the explosion.

However, Shaffer has remained concerned over what she perceived as Arkema’s indifference towards involving the nearby community if a similar emergency arises.

“I felt like no one at the meeting really had answers,” she advises.

Arkema received no calls of concern other than Shaffer’s.

Shaffer told the group, “Whether a community is asking questions or not, that doesn’t resolve you of the responsibility when working with chemicals which can cause a huge detonation or deflagration.”

Shaffer feels Arkema has a “responsibility to the community to educate people” about the chemicals they are using and how to react in the event of an emergency.

“When an alarm goes off, does the community, the school or the college campus know what to do?” she asks.

Having seen slide photos of the building before and after the explosion, Shaffer has no doubt that loss of life would have occurred if people had been inside and in the vicinity when the explosion took place.

“It was just totally demolished,” she reports.

An employee had detected an unusual sound coming from a unit where nitrogen is used to cool organic peroxides. Because there was forewarning of a malfunction, the building was evacuated about 20 minutes before the explosion.

Shaffer also has issue with the siren she continues to hear at the plant. Having been told that the siren is test-sounded on a weekly basis, she hears them much more frequently, sometimes several times in one day and once continuously for longer than an hour.

“There seems to be a huge breakdown of communication.” Shaffer observes. “If there was an emergency at Arkema, the surrounding communities wouldn’t have any idea of what to do; wouldn’t even know what a siren meant.”

Shaffer suggests that a thorough response plan might be a collaborative effort on the part of all affected.

“My desire is for more social consciousness and a dialogue,” she summarizes.

Company response

When alerted to Shaffer’s position, Arkema was  willing to provide a written statement of response and meet with The County News for an interview.

The meeting took place last Friday at the Hampton Corners Emergency Response headquarters with Arkema Regional Manufacturing Director Denise Hubbard and in the presence of Livingston County Director of Emergency Management Services Kevin Niedermaier.

Arkema emphasizes that it has taken the July 17 incident very seriously. An extensive investigation into the cause was undertaken and the company has implemented policies whereby such incidents will be prevented. Additionally, retraining of employees and personnel changes have taken place. Arkema continues to work internally and with outside emergency responders to improve response performance to emergencies.

Emergency scenario

An Incident Commander at the plant is charged with assessing any incident. This person is in close and regular contact with Niedermaier’s office, as well as with local police, fire and ambulance departments.

On-the-spot decisions having to do with community response to plant situations possibly impacting the neighborhoods outside the plant are made by the local fire, police, ambulance and county emergency response personnel. These departments swiftly responded to the July 17 explosion and worked at the site in close coordination with Arkema.

“I’d like to thank Kevin, the LEPC, and the other responding agencies that came on stand-by and helped us coordinate the incident and made sure everybody was safe,” Hubbard said.

While there admittedly was some confusion over the matter, Arkema notes that even during the extreme emergency of July 17, no community evacuation was necessary.

“We have since worked with local emergency responders to clarify guidelines on communicating with the community during an emergency,” Hubbard said.

“The noise was the concerning factor,” Niedermaier observed.

The initial order to evacuate off-site homes — soon to be rescinded — came from the unified command center set up at Arkema, Niedermaier revealed. As with any reaction to an emergency situation, it was best to error on the side of caution.

At Niedermaier’s direction, responding fire trucks and emergency vehicles were swiftly moved off Route 63 and staged at the parking lot by Arkema’s main shipping building.

In that early morning hour, Niedermaier had advised Arkema management that traffic volume would soon be picking up on Route 63.

“They were ushered right off the road very quickly. The company told me, ‘That’s not even an issue,’” Niedermaier relates. “We had permission to bring the responders in and staged them over by Building 4.”

“Then we brought the leader of each department into Unified Command for a briefing.”

Acknowledging Shaffer’s concern over the sirens, Arkema advises that the audible signals are meant for communication with employees and are not intended for communication with the outside community. Arkema promises future outreach to the community to clarify the purpose of its alarm system for those neighbors who are able to hear it.

Community outreach

Information on Arkema’s Risk Management Plan is provided to the public. It may be obtained through Niedermaier’s office or directly from the company. The plan contains an assessment of the risks of certain chemicals in use at the plant and also explains incident prevention and response.

Arkema has had community outreach programs in place for some time in the forms of open houses and an advisory panel.

The company’s Community Advisory Panel (CAP) has been meeting for the past ten years. The group is comprised of a cross-section of community representatives, meets regularly, and is provided with plant-related information which the members in turn are encouraged to disseminate among their community.

Shaffer was invited to attend the CAP meeting called after the explosion.

“She was the one neighbor who had expressed concern and we wanted to try to help her feel comfortable,” Hubbard said.

“We have gone to the CAP for guidance, asking if we needed to communicate anything else to the community,” Hubbard added. “They suggested was that we expand: Send direct communication to the school superintendents, the college president, the mayor of the Village of Geneseo and a few other officials.”

Accordingly, these officials received a letter providing an overview of the incident and the responses. A noteworthy followup to this action was that the person in charge of emergency response on the college campus has joined the CAP.

Arkema regularly hosts an open house of its industrial facilities for science teachers and a separate event for the community-at-large. Such an open house event being planed for 2010. It will give neighbors and other interested persons the opportunity to learn about the plant and to ask questions of plant personnel.

‘Negative pressure’ clarified

In the event of a similar explosion or escaped chemical incident at Arkema, any actual threat to the community would likely be a plume of toxic gas.

“In that circumstance, the community-at-large is better off in a shelter. You are safest in your house,” Niedermaier stated.

Most large institutional buildings and some private homes have heating-air conditioning systems allowing for a reverse air flow (sometimes mischaracterized as “negative pressure”) which shuts off the intake of outside fresh air, Niedermaier explained. During an outside toxic cloud emergency or even when there is just a bad odor, setting the HVAC system in reverse flow mode will keep the air circulating within the building without drawing in outside air.

Plume modeling done in the wake of the July 17 incident indicated that no toxic substances reached any off site properties.

Emergency plans in place and updated

Niedermaier stated that Arkema, under federal law, is required to have an emergency plan in place, and that plan needs to encompass the outside community. It is likewise the case that the schools and college, under state education law, have their own emergency plans.

The respective plans take stock of the existence of their neighbors: Just as the Arkema plan includes the nearby presence of two schools and college, the school and college plans take account of Arkema’s presence. Furthermore, a comprehensive emergency management plan for Livingston County takes stock of all entities.

It is not one entity’s responsibility to propose emergency response for its neighbor as it is, rather, to make sure its emergency plan is linked with it’s neighbor’s emergency plan. The plans are coordinated by the local emergency planing committee (LEPC).

(Indeed, the very day of this interview Niedermaier had met with school resource officers and officials to perform a mandatory review and update of school safety plans. The subject matter was “inter-agency response and reaction to a school-based incident.” See story on police blotter page.)

Every large Livingston County industry has it own emergency plan receiving regular scrutiny from Niedermaier’s office.

“We tell the companies that we’re going to dust off their plans, and other people are the evaluators,” Niedermaier said.

Any plant change, however small or large: management, product, shift or even a telephone number — must be incorporated into the emergency plan.

Arkema modeled a “table top drill” in October, coordinated by Niedermaier and the LEPC.

This drill was followed up by large scale drill additionally involving GCS, YCS, SUNY, the county Sheriff, county Health Department, the New York State Police, the Red Cross, Arkema’s CAP and the York Fire Department, each of which sent one or several representatives.

Tagged as: Armeka, emergency response