EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PLANNING FOR STORAGE FACILITIES

Safety expert Paul Calderwood runs through the aspects to consider when developing an emergency management plan ONE of the benefits of having worked in emergency management planning for so long, is that I have seen a lot of incidents and read the reports about what happened and how it happened. As a deputy fire chief I responded to many incidents and have seen firsthand how fast things can go bad. However, with good planning and training, I have also seen incidents handled before I even got to the facility. What I am going to ask you to do today, as you read this article, is to think about where you work, your facility, your storage tanks, the products you store and your employees. If you have had an incident at your facility, how do you feel they would respond to it? What about your fire protection and safety systems? When was the last time they were properly tested? I visited one storage facility, asked operators to show me how they would respond to a rim seal fire and flow actual foam, and was met with surprise. Their attitude was that flowing foam is expensive and makes a mess, but they complied with my request to see it. We simulated a fire on an empty tank and they...