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Praxair Fire in St Louis 2

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unclesyd

Materials
Aug 21, 2002
9,819
Just happened to have the news on when they broke in with action report on a fire at a Praxair Distribution Center in St Louis, Mo. Really thankful that no one was reported injured.

It was purely amazing as to the descriptions and explanations of what was going on at the scene. On three separate networks not one individual, reporter, safety personnel, or emergency personnel, was correct in their descriptions and explanations of the incident. It was an extensive fire in the storage yard involving many bottles of different gases. Some cylinders did burst and send debris in several directions and cause several collateral fires. Everyone missed the main thrust of the fire as being Acetylene fires burning due to the fuse plug releasing and venting the Acetylene and Acetone. I did see one pallet of MAPP gas burning. You could see pallets of Acetylene cylinders burning at the valve area. The largest fires were either trailer loads of cylinders or manifold racks. A comment was made that the fireman couldn’t tell what was burning, evidently none had a list of cylinder color codes. The pail of black smoke was coming mainly from burning tire rubber. There was a little black smoke initially from the Acetylene due to O2 depravation but that quickly cleared up.

It is bad enough that the big networks don't have someone with an petrochemical or chemical industry on call that could shutdown some of the reporters/commentators. It is even worse when the responders don't know or understand the basic of chemistry and physics and a detailed knowledge of the hazardous material in the area. It looked like their were 4 cryo tanks in the vicinity that no one mentioned.

A incident just happened in our area where one of emergency chiefs was on TV and was reporting on a derailed tank car of "caustic acid" that might blowup.

I appreciate all the people in the fire and emergency groups but sure wish they could have better understanding of what they are facing by learning the basics of the physical science. An be more familiar with the industries in their jurisdiction.
 
Makes you wonder about the rest of the news, the part about stuff that you don't pretend to understand yourself, doesn't it?



Mike Halloran
NOT speaking for
DeAngelo Marine Exhaust Inc.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
 
unclesyd
I have been thinking this since 9/11 so I will put it out there. I really feel for the firemen/first responders to these incidents because no one has their backs. There are probably a thousand engineers that knew when they saw the sustained fire impinging on the steel of the twin towers that they were coming down. How do we get that kind of expert knowledge to the first responders. They need our help. Granted the gross media errors are annoying but if the firemen are thinking the same thing as the reporters they need some guidance to help save their lives and the lives of others.
How do you do that with out creating a huge mess? I don't know but maybe some type of dispacher that pages volunteer engineers of a defined catagorie and they respond either on the phone or travel to the site if it is a local network. I think we could contribute in a big way to help these guys.

Just my opinion
StoneCold
 
Mike,

I gave you a star for your comment. I long ago decided that if the news media botched what I did know something about so badly, how badly were they botching information about topics that I did not know anything about.

That is one of the things I appreciate about this forum and others of the same type. The thread started by unclesyd on the BP explosion produced much more true and valuable informative than the news media ever could have done, although not as timely.

Unclesyd, I was driving through your part of the world, returning from a sugar industry meeting in a nearby city about the time of your post. I did not know I was in such danger from the potential explosion of the 'caustic acid' (sic). Rich!!!

rmw

PS, I failed to remember the I-10 bridge situation on the eastbound leg of my trip, and cursed myself for not finding an alternate route. It was brutally slow when I went through. And to think, someone stuck in bumper to bumper traffic could have been 'blown up' by "caustic acid".

Actually, I was listening to the live accounts of the St. Louis situation on Fox News via satellite radio, and actually wondered to myself if you (still talking to Unclesyd) would have a post on the topic by the time I returned and got on line. Way to come through. Keep up the good work.
 
Thoughts about on-call experts.

In rural areas, the Fire Chief is the guy who _wants_ to drive around in a red car, and will buy his own siren. OF COURSE he's an idiot; the regular firemen elected him for the specific purpose of going on TV and making a (further) fool of himself. Deep knowledge of physics, chemistry, or firefighting, is not a prerequisite for the job.

In big cities, especially NYC, it's all political, and technical competence is certainly not expected there.

Help would likely be unwelcome, even if, maybe especially if, offered free gratis, even if demonstrated competent, etc.

<flame>

The thing that bugged me most about WTC was the pissing contest between NYFD and NYPD. After the first attack on the WTC, FD accused PD of violating their turf and grandstanding by evacuating a few people from the roof by helicopter.

As a result of which, in violation of every fire code in the whole damn world, THE FIRE DEPARTMENT padlocked the roof access doors, effectively killing everyone on the top floors of WTC in the second attack.

Rank and file firement are special people, crazy enough to enter a building that they know is in danger of collapse, and they are heroes by any definition.

But the top ranks of NYFD are murderers, and should be prosecuted and executed, say by dropping a burning building on them, or by locking them in the top of one.

</flame>

Someday maybe I'll stop holding back, and tell you what I really think. ;-)

;--

I worked briefly in a chemical plant that makes medicine by a synthesis process with unstable intermediates. That plant has a small volunteer firefighting and paramedic team of its own. They train intensively, and I'm sure they make plans for a lot of possible scenarios. But everybody knows that they will never have a _small_ accident.




Mike Halloran
NOT speaking for
DeAngelo Marine Exhaust Inc.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
 
StoneCold.
I had the same feeling while watching the 9/11 event on live TV, in fact I told my wife that as they showed the first tower that the top of the tower couldn't hold. Like everyone else I had no idea of the tower's construction, so as the first windows blew out below the impact point my comment was the "the whole damn thing is going down". I had a very sinking feeling worsened by seeing the same scenerio on the second tower prior to the collapse. I've haven't read whether this scenerio was ever even considered by FDNY in any attack plans. As far as I know it was post mortem that concluded that this was the inevitable outcome of a flying bomb.

Not to be critical in mean sense, but more as critique in hopes of keeping someone from getting injured or killed.
I have to go back to one of the original statements that It appears that the basic knowledge of the physical laws plays a very important roll in the action of the first responders. Another point not mentioned is the military like structure of a lot emergency teams fire, water, police, emergency, and now homeland security. I have found if you are not one them it is hard to make a recommendation or even point out a potential hazard of their own actions. I’ve run into that many times with the fire brigade at our site when they were doing things that violated all their chemical operator training. It wasn’t until the twilight of my career that I had any input to our fire brigade after many years of trying. After thirty years of trying I finally got them to understand you didn’t have to knock the insulation off pipes and vessels to keep them cool.
I have talked to supervision many times about ways and means to make all responders aware of their surroundings along with potential hazards of some of their actions above and beyond putting water on a fire. I know for the numerous groups outside the battery limits of a facility the knowledge base required to be even familiar with the processes within a given facility that they may encounter under mutual aid agreements would be almost incomprehensible.
One thing that I have noted of late with several companies that I am familiar with is the ugly head of liability both monetary and environmental has been big part of not misinformation, but the lack of information being disseminated. This is compounded by the fact as witnessed by the Praxair fire the population density is increasing in close proximity to many potential hazardous facilities further complicating the response to each event.


rmw,

Hate that you got trapped by the I-10 bridge boondoggle. If its any solstice to you taking any of the bypass routes you could have run into the same problem depending on the time of day. They have, I think, authorized a study to build a new bridge, slightly higher than the present one. I understand that they already have problems on the proposed route on the Eastern side as they can’t find a consolidated sand to sit the pilings on. You may not have noticed it but some of the support piers were moved out of line in the damaged section.













 
First, it's unknown or unclear if St. Louis Fire Department had a tactical plan for that facility or if they did or did not conduct pre-fire surveys. With that said, the footage I watched indicated to me that the Fire Department couldn't get its apparatus close enough to even to begin to start an attack. From my observations the FD was screwed just because of the conditions faced on arrival.

As a engineer who supervises the hazardous materials inspection program in a large city (>1 million) I can tell you that tactical pre-planning and having a clear understanding of the hazards is essential to the response. We have seen the benefit of this to emergency responders and facility management and staff. Response to a facility like Praxair requires a committment to work and communicate together from plant managment and the fire service.

For those folks who operate chemical and similiar types of facilities I encourage you to contact your local FD and explain to them the hazards that may be present but also the engineering and administrative controls incorporated into these processes. This will hopefully demystify the hazards or concerns that the FFs have and also educate them how to safely approach and manage an emergency at your facilities.

Finally, I agree with the concerns of the media and have a cache of qualified engineers available to assist at emergencies. However, if this was to occur, these engineers need to be available to assist in tactical planning. As a engineer who responds to emergencies I have learned that one must obtain the trust of the FFs before they will listen. Frankly, as a former FF, I understand they are individuals who have to ultimately manage the emergency. However, that credibility can be gained by performing planning before the emergency.
 
There were projectiles coming out of the Praxair site. This suggests that LPG or similar products were exploding as the liquid level reduced. If the fire department knew of this risk they would keep a safe distance and also evacuate a safe distance.

HAZOP at
 
A fire at a cylinder plant could produce any number of projectiles from any number of cylinder types or gases present in them. For example, CO2 and N2O are also stored as a liquid in cylinders. It is dramatic and dangerous.
As for the media clueless - HELLO - they're not called 'talking heads' for nothing.
All kidding aside, they wouldn't get any info from the plant personel or managers because they are trained to refer all questions/inquiries to a corporate rep.
So, they need to fill time, so they'll practically make up stuff so as not to appear uninformed.
 
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