South Bay Fire Departments: Plans or Practice for accidental MHF release?

Final Report on Feb 18, 2015 Torrance refinery explosion: Chemical Safety Board Chair Vanessa Sutherland repeated this “accident had the potential to be CATASTROPHIC…the operators were running the [FCC] unit blind.” http://www.csb.gov/assets/1/19/ExxonMobil_Report_FOR_PUBLIC_RELEASE.pdf The exploded ESP unit is 80 ft. north of 100,000 lb. of Modified Hydrofluoric Acid (MHF) in 2 tanks. Debris from the top of the 12-story ESP the size of a fully loaded semi-truck and trailer reached 60 MPH, slamming down 5 ft. short of disaster. Dumb luck saved us this time. What could have happened? If “ONLY” 5,000 lb. of the 50,000 lb. of MHF in that tank was released and remained airborne, this: Not long after kids are dropped off at school, people in West Torrance, S. Redondo Beach, and South Hermosa Beach are clobbered by a dense rolling white fog of HF toxic enough to kill or cause serious and irreversible injuries. How would it feel? In the words of one refinery worker exposed to a 22 lb. release of HF in 2009: "I could feel it through my eyes, my nose, it was like a heat wave came over me... I couldn’t breathe… [I was gasping] for air, dizzy… I couldn’t talk." Worker Jamison received a sub-lethal dose, but has permanent heart and lung damage as a result of this exposure. It might take an hour for the ground-hugging cloud to reach the beach, but emergency responders are ineffective. Not one Fire Department in the South Bay has planned for or conducted practice drills for a response to a MHF release that affects the community. Few who see the cloud approaching will even know what it is, or know what to do. The siren will be heard by almost no one, even within a mile of the refinery. The Torrance Alerts texts and emails and phone calls will come too late for the few who realized they should sign up. Do you want that to happen to your children? Yourself? Your town? It’s up to us, folks. We have to GET INVOLVED, even if only a couple hours a week. Legislators in Sacramento REFUSED TO ALLOW Muratsuchi’s bill AB 1645 to move on for a vote in the assembly. Instead they voted for a better warning system to tell us its coming. How many warnings do residents need before we ACT? See the last two charts in this short presentation for suggestions: http://bit.ly/2p6dPCn ; SHARE THIS POST PLEASE. SIGN THE PETITION to ban MHF: http://chn.ge/1Wf1Hav ; Come to a TRAA meeting. 1st and 3rd Monday each month (except holidays) 6:00-8:00 p.m. Sizzler 2880 Sepulveda Blvd, Torrance Contact: info@safetorrancerefinery.org For more info see our website: safetorrancerefinery.org. Twitter: @TraaNow