Special Report - Poor planning left Texas fire-fighters unprepared
(Reuters) - The fertilizer-plant explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 others in Texas last month highlights the failings of a U.S. federal law intended to save lives during chemical accidents, a Reuters investigation has found.
Known as the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the law requires companies to tell emergency responders about the hazardous chemicals stored on their properties. But even when companies do so, the law stops there: After the paperwork is filed, it is up to the companies and local fire-fighters, paramedics and police to plan and train for potential disasters.
West Fertilizer Co of West, Texas, had a spotty reporting record. Still, it had alerted a local emergency-planning committee in February 2012 that it stored potentially deadly chemicals at the plant. Fire-fighters and other emergency responders never acted upon that information to train for the kind of devastating explosion that happened 14 months later, according to interviews with surviving first responders, a failing that likely cost lives.
It's a scenario that has played out in chemical accidents nationwide - one that the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has repeatedly identified as contributing to deaths and injuries spanning more than a decade.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/22/uk-chemical-emergency-specialreport-idUKBRE94L19220130522