25 in hospital - another chemical /power failure

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Another chemical dumping after failure to recover from a power failure.....

http://www.sacbee.com/news/calreport/calrep_story.cgi?N284.HTML

-- Living in (the@real.world), July 14, 1999

Answers

This is the sort of contingency that EPA expects chemical plants to plan for in case there are power interruptions next year. Continues to make me wonder why, if so much of the world is "ready" for y2k, they can't handle these basic emergencies already.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), July 14, 1999.

Looks like I need to add gas masks and hip waders to the list.

-- Army Girl (aGirl@ag.com), July 14, 1999.

Interesting that both the primary and backup power supplies failed. In other words, as in several other cases, there was a backup; it just didn't work right.

Wha REALLY concerns me about this failure - repeated several times in several different process facilities (not all chemical or oil refineries) is that this trend shows again how incredibly difficult running a plant "manuallY" - or using work-arounds - or "with backups" as so many are apparently planning to do next January/February can be.

Now, several facilities -even when such a simple thing as a single backup power supply simply fails to operate: during y2k tests, or when actually required as in this case - are showing us that simply remaining "in business as usual" might be difficult. Difficult even for those plants who HAVE tried to prepare alternates and backups.

___

By the way, I hope the bankers who had to evacuate learn that they are out of business too if there is no backup power at their bank. But we won't need cash - nope, it'll just be a speedbump in the road of life.....

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 14, 1999.


Brooks, the answer is easy: they just ain4t ready gal! And everything indicates that they ain4t got time to get ready either. So...

Robert, yeah, you are right. And obviously we will get a lot of these "indirect" y2k accidents before, during and after Jan. 2000. Now another deal is that many (on purpose?) will argue\believe that this type of flaw is not y2k induced. The impact of such attitudes is yet to be seen, but it won4t go by without consequences. Communicational strategies and public opinion reaction are also an important piece on the y2k chessboard.

By the way Robert, congratulations and many thanks for your always balanced and most valuable input.

Take care

And what about Brazil, India, Russia, Italy, etc., etc.

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), July 14, 1999.


Brazil's compliant! :>

-- Moore Dinty moore (not@thistime.com), July 14, 1999.


Could somebody provide a hot link. Thank you

-- tpe (///////@///.//), July 14, 1999.

Link

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), July 14, 1999.

Yep, *another* back-up failure. Robert, it's a Humpty Dumpty Bump.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), July 14, 1999.

Here's the whole article.. it's short: Link

Southern California news briefs

AZUSA, Calif. (AP) -- Chemical vapors spread through an industrial area, sending 25 people to hospitals because of nausea, vomiting and chest pains, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.

About 100 people were evacuated from the area Tuesday when a foul smell was reported about 8 a.m. Employees were allowed to return to work by Tuesday afternoon.

Five employees of a nearby bank were among those taken to area hospitals, said fire spokesman Phil Ulloa.

The problem developed when a chemical reaction container at Reichhold Chemicals, which makes polyester resins, overheated after a power failure, fire officials said.

A backup system also failed to work properly.

[oddly, I couldn't find a link for the story doing an AP search for chemical, Azusa, or Reichhold.]

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 14, 1999.


Southern California news briefs

AZUSA, Calif. (AP) -- Chemical vapors spread through an industrial area, sending 25 people to hospitals because of nausea, vomiting and chest pains, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.

About 100 people were evacuated from the area Tuesday when a foul smell was reported about 8 a.m. Employees were allowed to return to work by Tuesday afternoon.

Five employees of a nearby bank were among those taken to area hospitals, said fire spokesman Phil Ulloa.

The problem developed when a chemical reaction container at Reichhold Chemicals, which makes polyester resins, overheated after a power failure, fire officials said.

A backup system also failed to work properly.




-- _ (_@_._), July 14, 1999.



LA is sure getting the lions' share of Y2K fubars........ you'd think everybody would have made the connection by now.

-- lisa (lisa@work.still), July 14, 1999.

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