West,TX Explosion/MCI

[Achilles]

True, but someone, somewhere, made a mistake here. I doubt it was individual volunteers, but this needs to be examined so that improvements can be made.

Right, you can't blame this on one person. It's a combination of things, kind of like the fire triangle, you can't have fire w/o fuel, heat, and O2.
If one of those is missing, it equals no fire.
A fertilizer plant is not just built to explode.
You have flaws in things (people are not perfect) we make mistakes in the medical field, legal field, construction field, we're not perfect. Our work is not perfect, things are going to break, snap, bend.
Then you have your people you run companies, those people aren't perfect either, their computers crash, they lose money one way or another, things just happen.
We have people that overview these kinds of places OSHA, for example, has not perfect people working for them, inspecting fertilizer plants, giving fines to those that deserve them. Well I can say from expirence, that I have violated OSHA's rules again and again. (Everyone has.) and I've never received a fine from them.
Then you have your fire dept, police and EMS (we'll just say they're combined for this. Perhaps the fire department was unprepared, that is equal everyone's fault, a chief asks his town for a millage for new rigs or w/e is needed and the town denies. Maybe there needs to be some changes for NFPA, things like this usually call for changes.

Since we're on topic of an MCI, (JP mentioned this regarding Boston) Boston was ready, and people were killed, was West ready? Perhaps, perhaps not. They certainly didn't have dozens of ambulances on standby for the worst case scenario. no fire, EMS service, or police department in the world is prepared 24/7/365 for a bomb to go off, or some other unpredictable catastrophe.


This too

Unfortunately, that's how it will go down... Even them big cities make huge mistakes that cost too many lives. NIOSH will release their report, it will be filed away and forgotten about by 90% of the public safety community. It's hard for the community and public at large to distinguish critical review from an attack

 

[RocketMedic]

There was a self-admitted and very real and dangerous training deficit here, guys. Yes, they did not know what was in the tanks, how much, or how volatile, except for a general idea- but the burden of that ignorance lies on them, from the chief down. The chief should have pressed the issue and identified the plant as a threat. The members of the department should have trained for something like this.

Ive run into this attitude plenty of times- "we don't get enough training time, so we will focus on the fundamentals". This leads to endless drills, repetitions of same, and contests to see who is "best" and boost egos...and the day slips away, training is forgotten, and the advanced stuff falls by the wayside.

Fundamentals arent bad, but they are not the be-all of anything. Here, it sounds like they viewed the plant as an unknown, horrible danger that Had To Be Put Out Right Now, executed their drills to the best of their ability, and died en masse.

 

[Handsome Robb]

Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS before ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.

Interesting article.

Unfortunately, after reading the remarks in it from the WVFD personnel I'm afraid you're right.

10 LODDs is not acceptable. I don't think it's just WVFD to blame, there are lots of parties that failed to do what was required of them or to act in an appropriate manor when they recognized something wasn't being done correctly.

 

[RocketMedic]

Jolly volly...

 

[xrsm002]

I use to volunteer with West EMS, its where i got my start, I know their station was actually a huge brick building with the ability to hold up to 6 ambulances they had a total of 4 at the time they had days where they needed that many being half a mile from the interstate, and are down to two. It was probably the biggest and nicest Ems station I have ever seen, had a full bathroom, conference room, crew quarters, big kitchen, they had also just payed the last payment on the building the week before the explosion. The Air Ecac base however was just a portable building, they would store the bird in one of our bays during bad weather. As far as the WVFD, they knew what was in the tanks, as one of the members worked full time at the fertilizer plant.

 

[EMDispatch]

Jolly volly...

I happen to remember a large paid fire department that responded to a high rise emergency, for the second time in a decade, and failed to improve upon their first incident response. They over/self-dispatched to the point of absolutely no accountability, established their IC in the incident building, never resolved the interop and general communication issues from the previous incident, failed to set appropriate staging. They managed to efficiently and effectively evacuate most of the buildings, but failed to control and evacuate civilians out of the active incident area after successful evacuations... The end results were incredibly ugly and tragic.

Mistakes happen across the board, Chicago is exceptional successful at killing responders for stupid reasons. The reality is we all have blind spots in our response systems and training... Paid or volly...EMS,Fire, or PD

 

[RocketMedic]

Dispatch, I'm not saying the pros are perfect, but they do seem far more willing to accept criticism than the 'Murika Volunteer crowd.

Perhaps the bigger problem is the fire leadership culture?

 

[Handsome Robb]

I happen to remember a large paid fire department that responded to a high rise emergency, for the second time in a decade, and failed to improve upon their first incident response. They over/self-dispatched to the point of absolutely no accountability, established their IC in the incident building, never resolved the interop and general communication issues from the previous incident, failed to set appropriate staging. They managed to efficiently and effectively evacuate most of the buildings, but failed to control and evacuate civilians out of the active incident area after successful evacuations... The end results were incredibly ugly and tragic.

Mistakes happen across the board, Chicago is exceptional successful at killing responders for stupid reasons. The reality is we all have blind spots in our response systems and training... Paid or volly...EMS,Fire, or PD

You're also talking about an event that killed upwards of 3000 people. Two transcontinental airliners into a pair of 110 story high rises is a little different than a fertilizer plant.

 

[Aidey]

It is the same principle though Rob, they knew about many of the issues long before that happened, and none of them were corrected. Even not expecting the towers to come down, putting the ICP in one of the buildings went against a ton of safety standards. The ICP is never ever supposed to be in the red zone.

 

[Achilles]

It is the same principle though Rob, they knew about many of the issues long before that happened, and none of them were corrected. Even not expecting the towers to come down, putting the ICP in one of the buildings went against a ton of safety standards. The ICP is never ever supposed to be in the red zone.

When you say "they", who are you referring to?

 

[chaz90]

I'm thinking this is a reference to FDNY.

 

[Achilles]

I'm thinking this is a reference to FDNY.

What about Bush, he knew about it...
He certainly had more admistrative control than the FDNY.

 

[chaz90]

More administrative control of FDNY regarding MCI plans for their own district? I'm not trying to talk politics here, but I don't quite understand how Bush had anything to do with the FDNY and NYPD responses to 9/11. I'm not aware of any sitting president that sits in the Oval Office and coordinates day to day operations of big city Fire departments...

 

[Achilles]

More administrative control of FDNY regarding MCI plans for their own district?no. But as far as airport security, foreign relations, etc. I'm not trying to talk politics here, but I don't quite understand how Bush had anything to do with the FDNY and NYPD responses to 9/11. I'm not aware of any sitting president that sits in the Oval Office and coordinates day to day operations of big city Fire departments...

It's certainly not all of one persons fault, but there are higher percentages on certain people.
This is getting off topic though, I don't follow everything on OSHA besides they get their funding from the gov.

 

[EMDispatch]

Dispatch, I'm not saying the pros are perfect, but they do seem far more willing to accept criticism than the 'Murika Volunteer crowd.

Perhaps the bigger problem is the fire leadership culture?

A lot is leadership, especially in volly departments. The other part is that despite training and prep, you will run into situations you really aren't prepared for. How many agencies truly train for a large scale hazmat, or an MCI? Beyond that look at how accurate a reflectin of the real event most of those trainings are. Point and example, most airport MCI drills look little like what an actual event would look like. Drills are usually so scripted and controlled that they become inpossible to really screw up, and learn from.

 

[mycrofft]

Speaking of learning and preparedness...

GO back NOW and review the beginning of this thread. See how data developed, changed, was added to by people with experience or not. Compare to what we know now.

And, hopefully, NO rinse and repeat; but, unavoidably so.

My local FD has their EOC in a temporary modular office/classroom under a quarter mile downwind of a major highway, hundreds of feet upwind from a very major train line through the state, about four miles downwind form another major Interstate, and a half mile from two enormous, gigantic propane storage tanks you can see for miles. Their former HQ was next to a stream which has an under-100 year flood rating. Oh well...

 

[EMDispatch]

GO back NOW and review the beginning of this thread. See how data developed, changed, was added to by people with experience or not. Compare to what we know now.

And, hopefully, NO rinse and repeat; but, unavoidably so.

My local FD has their EOC in a temporary modular office/classroom under a quarter mile downwind of a major highway, hundreds of feet upwind from a very major train line through the state, about four miles downwind form another major Interstate, and a half mile from two enormous, gigantic propane storage tanks you can see for miles. Their former HQ was next to a stream which has an under-100 year flood rating. Oh well...

Well said, our hindsight is always going to be 20/20. Today's the first time since the incident occurred that I've gone back and listened to the audio. Mistakes were made, but they did the best thu could, with what they had. I 'm sure if I posted some of my own major incident tapes here, it wouldn't always be pretty. But, we always get the job done as best we can, with hat we have, and learn for the next time.
I can train on every incident I can imagine.... and in 15 minutes, I'll get a call for something I never expected (east coast earthquake). We prepare as best as we can, and we will still encounter the unexpected, or worse the unpredictable variable that turns the routine on its head.

 

[mycrofft]

Three things one gets to learn from these deals.

1. Who came through versus who didn't. Ask why.

2. If the plans failed, and some parts always do, was it because they were faulty, or based on a useless assumption, or because they hadn't been exercised and updated, etc.? (Common assumption usually proven wrong: central command continues intact and capable of handling information volume). (Remember, if it always works in an exercise, then it absolutely will not i a real disaster; it's tailored for exercises).

3. How do you feel and how, objectively, did you do about it?

And a fourth thing one MUST do:

4. Loudly accurately and promptly acclaim those who shone, especially the line folks. (Deskjockeys above the middle managers can wait for the annual dinner).