Flaws Found in Emergency Plans Near Toxic Plants

It is known as Chemical Valley, a 20-mile stretch of poison makers squeezed into a narrow chasm plagued by a slow breeze and frequent fog.

The region is filled with chemical giants such as Monsanto, Allied Chemical, E. I. du Pont de Nemours, Exxon, FMC and Union Carbide--members of an industrial club that claims the world’s best safety record but is also burdened with the world’s worst industrial accident.

Until a Dec. 3 leak of methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide facility in India killed more than 2,000 persons and left 60,000 injured, MIC also had been produced at a Carbide plant here.

Since then, many of the valley’s 250,000 residents, and no doubt millions more clustered around other U.S. chemical centers, have been wondering how they would fare in such a crisis.

An Associated Press study of several regions with large concentrations of chemical plants indicates that emergency plans in those areas often lack the coordination and resources needed to make them workable.

Emergency plans . . . often lack the coordination and resources to make them workable.

While emergency preparedness around nuclear plants is required and supervised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, no federal regulations require plans for areas near chemical facilities.

Frequently, there are lengthy, elaborate plans, but they do not tell the general public where to go and what to do if an evacuation is necessary. In West Virginia, for example, there are no provisions for evacuating the elderly, schoolchildren, prisoners or persons without autos.

So-called transportation plans are more like traffic plans, detailing where police would stand to direct fleeing residents and to block roads approaching the disaster.

The Associated Press found that participation of chemical and oil refining companies in local emergency planning is usually voluntary, with state and county officials rarely having the statutory ability, or expertise, to oversee existing industry plans.

Plans for the public are not specific about possible emergency sites or kinds of incidents. Local officials generally do not know what kinds of chemicals are in the plants or what damage they are capable of inflicting.

In a crisis, the decisions of if and when the public should be informed about an explosion or leak are generally left to the discretion of industry.

For the most part, chemical companies face no fines or other disciplinary measures for inadequate emergency planning or for failing to inform the public when events dictate they should.

In all, many of the communities seem to have an attitude of “it can’t happen here.”

Nowhere are the problems with emergency preparedness more apparent than in Chemical Valley, a region filled with phosgene, chlorine and a variety of phenols.

Chemical Valley runs eastward through Kanawha County from Nitro, a town named for its nitroglycerin production in World War I, past Institute and the state capital of Charleston and on to Belle.

‘Poor’ Ventilation

The wind usually runs slow and to the east, from the largest plants toward the major population centers.

The valley’s “ventilation is historically poor,” said Carl G. Beard III, director of the state Air Pollution Control Commission. “Air stagnation is frequent.”

The valley has four general emergency plans--one each for the state police, state emergency services, the county and the industrial emergency council--and one for each major plant as well.

The county plan emphasizes protection from nuclear fallout after an enemy attack. The state plan says “the primary responsibility for evacuation lies with local government.” At times, the plans contradict each other, especially on the length and type of warning sirens.

The few evacuation drills held are only for plant employees. The general public doesn’t participate.

‘Different Sounds’

“To refer to it as an evacuation plan is a misnomer. It’s pathetic,” said Donald Wilson, a schoolteacher from Institute. “You’re supposed to listen to a number of different sounds, go outside and sense the wind, and then get involved in a lot of traffic.”

Under the plans, many emergency duties would fall on local fire departments, the overwhelming majority of which are volunteer squads lacking the specialized equipment needed to cope with a major chemical explosion or fire.

One volunteer team has four gas masks for 12 men.

“You can’t ask people who fund themselves on bake sales and community suppers to finance the purchase of this type of equipment. We’re talking about very sophisticated, expensive equipment,” Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said.

In some other parts of the country, things are little better.

Two years ago officials near Taft, La.--situated along a 120-mile stretch of the Mississippi River dubbed Chemical Row--were able to evacuate about 17,000 persons in 2 1/2 hours after a Union Carbide plant exploded.

Danger at Plant

But a reconstruction of the accident compiled for the owners of a nearby nuclear plant showed that Union Carbide knew for hours that its tank was in danger of blowing up but delayed before informing local emergency preparedness officials.

In addition, the reconstruction showed, local Union Carbide workers were calling home to order their families to evacuate more than two hours before the first call to emergency officials.

In Texas’ Golden Triangle, a dense complex of oil refineries and petrochemical plants east of Houston, the role of coordinating agency seems to change from crisis to crisis.

“There still is no clear delineation of who does what. It still has not been, in my mind, ultimately resolved,” said Michael Peters, a regional director with the Texas Air Control Board. “There is no real coordinating agency in that sense. There’s nothing really written down, no formalized plan.”

Several members of Congress got a glimpse of Chemical Valley’s emergency preparedness at a hearing last month at West Virginia State College, which is adjacent to the Union Carbide facility.

Mikulski asked plant manager Hank J. Karawan to explain the county plan, which she held up in her hand.

“I’m unaware of that plan. I know about the KVIEPC plan,” Karawan said, referring to the Kanawha Valley Industrial Emergency Planning Council plan.

“One group thinks that this is the plan, and the other group thinks the other one is the plan,” Mikulski said.

In September, Union Carbide, the region’s largest employer with 7,000 jobs, sent a letter telling residents near its Institute plant to go outside and “check wind direction” if they hear continuing blasts from the plant steam whistle.

“If wind is blowing from plant toward you, immediately evacuate by going crosswind. In the case of a gas release you should be easily able to walk far enough crosswind to get away from the fumes,” the letter said.

Swimming River

But citizens point out that, if the wind is blowing in its usual eastward direction, crosswind would mean swimming the Kanawha River or scrambling up a mountain ridge.

At a public meeting attended by about 100 residents a week after the leak in India, state health director Dr. L. Clark Hansbarger suggested that residents, before going outside, put wet cloths over their mouths. He also said: “This area’s emergency plan is a model for the state and indeed the nation.”

The Charleston Gazette expressed its pique in an editorial, comparing the plan to that of some underdeveloped country that “prepared its aspiring astronauts for the rigors of space by requiring them to occupy metal drums and old automobile tires and rolling them down hillsides.”

It is no surprise that, with so many emergency plans, there is confusion over the meaning of each plan’s warning signals.

Union Carbide, for example, tells residents that in the event of an emergency with possible off-site consequences it will sound its steam whistle for two seconds every three seconds for a two-minute period, followed by two-second blasts every 30 seconds until the emergency ends.

Other Possibilities

There are three other alarm possibilities, according to a copy of the county emergency plan provided by William H. White, director of Kanawha County Emergency Services.

First comes the nuclear attack warning signal, “a 3-to-5 minute wavering tone on sirens, or a series of short blasts on horns or other devices . . . signifying that an actual attack against the county has been detected . . . . This signal shall be used for no other purpose or meaning.”

However, a penned addition says the attack warning signal will also be used for “disaster evacuation.”

Another penned addition says the attack-evacuation signal will be “3 off--3 on--3 off.”

The third possibility mentioned in the county plan is a 3-to-5 minute steady tone signal “to gain public attention in the event of a peacetime emergency.”

In the midst of the congressional hearing, a loud siren started to blow.

“What do we do now?” Rep. Gerry Sikorski (D-Minn.) asked.

No One Timing

“I think that’s the campus whistle, but I’m not sure,” said Paul Nuchims, an art professor who was testifying at the time.

No one was timing the length of the alarm.

“Do you have sirens often?” Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), the subcommittee chairman asked.

“That’s the point,” said Nuchims, who lives 300 yards from the Carbide plant. “We hear all sorts of sirens all the time. We don’t understand which ones are which, so what happens is we do nothing.”

Fifteen minutes later, enough time for any leaking gas to have reached the campus, it was announced that the alarm had sounded to call members of the Institute Volunteer Fire Department to a house fire.