The firefighters were initially worried that the water runoff from their hose spraying would lead to more contamination in the river. Dikes and dams were set up across the road from the plant at the employee park to stop the fire water from making it to the Ohio River. The employee park is about two acres of grassland. This was too late to stop the ethylene dibromide that was released during the explosion. The ethylene dibromide released into nearby Duck Creek which feeds into the Ohio River (Lewis).
Initial reports that came over the radio were that the smoke rising from the flames was not harmful to human life and that ethylene dibromide was not particularly harmful to humans and posed no threats. The release caused a fish kill in Duck Creek.…show more content… The employees then evacuated site and remained there until they were accounted for by Shell personnel. Employees that were supposed to arrive at work were called and notified not to show up due to the disaster. Work would remain closed until the completion of the inspection by OSHA and the search for the bodies was finished (Hunt, 2016).
Lessons Learned: During the emergency action plan it was found that following the explosion that the company’s system to determine the whereabouts of employees in the plant was insufficient. The company did not know the identities of the three lost employees immediately after the explosion (Hunt, 2016). The system that was in place was found to be inadequate to properly account for all the individuals that come on-site. Luckily for the company, everyone that was not killed in the explosion were accounted for before they left the facility. The employees mainly fled to the east gate which was about 600 meters away from the explosion. The main gate is located at the south side of the gate and was about 300 meters away from the explosion. The explosion disorientated many employees causing them to take too long to exit the facility leading to excess smoke inhalation (Hunt,
