Only at Wal-Mart

A Saturday morning of shopping turned into an emergency hazmat situation at a Baltimore Walmart where two patrons threw bleach and disinfectant at one another, officials said.

Baltimore County Police responded to a call at about 10:48 a.m. Saturday and found two women fighting inside the store.
The bleach and disinfectant created toxic fumes, forcing the immediate evacuation of the entire Arbutus store, officials told ABC News affiliate ABC 2. It closed for several hours.
Fire, EMS and hazardous materials units were dispatched to the scene, as well as 10 medics.
Nineteen people reportedly received treatment, including three Walmart employees. One person was taken to the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment, officials said.
Three Walmart employees were being treated for respiratory problems, a Walmart spokeswoman told ABC News.
Police have arrested Theresa Monique Jefferson, 33, after she turned herself in to authorities, according to the Associated Press.
She has reportedly been charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault, theft under $100 and malicious destruction of property. She is being held on $350,000 bail.
The brawl was a result of an ongoing dispute between Jefferson and the victim because the victim's boyfriend is the father of Jefferson's child, according to the AP.
Police spokesman Shawn Vinson told the Washington Post that Jefferson initiated the attack when she followed the victim into the store.

Haz Mat resource

National Hazardous Materials Fusion Center is a responder-driven data collection, analysis and education Web site. It was set up between the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). The site is a free, voluntary, confidential, and secure Web-based resource that serves as a data and information network for hazmat teams; first responders; federal, state and local agencies; and the private sector.

http://www.hazmatfc.com/Pages/Home.aspx

What’s Next?

 

It’s amazing what new technology is out there and how long it takes for it to find it’s way onto the Fire and EMS world. Found this interesting Tech article about a new sensor that would attach to a  smart phone. Is a pocket patient scanner next, or picket sized Hazmat detector. Is an iPhone Intrinsically safe?

NASA Ames News or more info at inhabitat. If you don't have any bomb sniffing dogs around to look for trance quantities of explosive gas, why not use your iPhone instead? That's exactly what Jing Li and a team of researchers from NASA have done with their cell phone chemical sensor. By connecting and interfacing a thumbnail sized sensor to a popular smart phone, they were able to create a device that can sense airborne ammonia, chlorine gas and methane, and report its findings over the cellular network or Wi-Fi. Admittedly, it took a bit more than just a bit of software to add an electronic nose to the iPhone, but it's still pretty neat use of a consumer device.

A new version of MARPLOT is available at

http://www.epa.gov/emergencies/content/cameo/marplot.htm

MARPLOT® (Mapping Application for Response, Planning, and Local Operational Tasks) is a

general-purpose mapping application program that allows you to create, view, and modify maps quickly and easily. It also allows you to link objects on your computer maps to data in other programs.

What is MARPLOT?

_ General-purpose mapping application program

_ Used for creating, viewing, and modifying maps

_ Links objects to data in other programs

_ Used with CAMEO or LandView™ applications

_ Contains information that can be shown on a map

MARPLOT is part of CAMEO’s suite of three separate, integrated software applications

» MARPLOT – Mapping application

» CAMEO – Chemical database and Information modules

» ALOHA – Air dispersion modeling

CAMEO is computer software for chemical emergency planners and responders

Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations (CAMEO)

 

EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed this web site to facilitate the use of CAMEO and to offer online technical support. Please visit periodically for the latest news, information, and resources.

http://www.epa.gov/emergencies/content/cameo/index.htm

ALOHA (Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres)

ALOHA (Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres) is a computer program designed especially for use by people responding to chemical releases, as well as for emergency planning and training. ALOHA models key hazards—toxicity, flammability, thermal radiation (heat), and overpressure (explosion blast force)—related to chemical releases that result in toxic gas dispersions, fires, and/or explosions. (Note: In versions prior to 5.4, ALOHA only models the toxic threat: specifically, how a toxic gas cloud might disperse in the atmosphere after an accidental chemical release.)

http://www.epa.gov/emergencies/content/cameo/aloha.htm

LandView is an innovative “community right-to-know” software tool in the format of an electronic atlas.

LandView has its roots in the CAMEO software (Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations). CAMEO was developed by the EPA and the NOAA to facilitate the implementation of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. This far-reaching law requires communities to develop emergency response plans addressing chemical hazards and to make available to the public information on chemical hazards in the community.

This product contains both database management software and mapping software used in the CAMEO system to create a simple computer mapping system involving two programs - MARPLOT^® and LandView.

http://www.census.gov/geo/landview/

Gasoline Tanker goes up in Fire in Perth Australia

See pictures from the fire

LiveLeak version (video quality may be better)

This fire occurred on Friday in Maddington, Perth, Australia. The fire began as a gasoline tanker drive was filling the underground tanks at a service station. No one was injured in the fire.

Watch what happens starting at about 49 seconds into the video as a fire rapidly takes over the entire structure. Perth Now reporter Chris Robinson interviewed Fire and Emergency Services of Western Australia (FESA)operational services officer Paul Ryan about this. Here are excerpts:
“On arrival, the guys found some tyres had started to ignite and some of the fuel areas around the garage had started to burn, so they started to cool the tank,” he said.
“The tank started to bulge a little bit and started pressurizing, (and) the guys then backed off from that area.
“The side of the tanker which was facing the service station then ruptured.”

Mr Ryan praised the efforts of the fire crews at the scene in placing water on the side of the tank to keep the strength of the aluminium in place, preventing further damage.
“If they hadn’t have done that, there was a possibility it may have failed, and taken some of our crews… so it was very good fire fighting by our personnel,” he said.

Derailment revisited Oct 2005

New Video
The police dashcam video and audio from the October, 2005 deadly chemical leak, explosion and fire that followed a Union Pacific collision and derailment in Texarkana, Arkansas has resurfaced on LiveLeak and YouTube in the last day.
The propylene explosion and resulting fireball comes at 3:40 in the video. The video contains the audio from the officer in the car talking to the dispatcher and other police officers via radio.
Report at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-10-15-train-derailment_x.htm


Seven train cars and a tankcar containing flammable gas derailed on October 15, 2005 at a railroad switchyard in Texarkana, Arkansas. The derailment caused a liquefied gas leak and explosion that killed one person and forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes. This video stresses the need to quickly research and properly identify chemicals involved in a hazardous materials incident. It also re-enforces the need to be prepared to immediately evacuate the scene of a hazardous materials incident.