Armageddon on Teesside

AS YOU read this it’s very likely quiet men and women in an anonymous office are planning for Armageddon.

One of them is Joe Dunne, a firefighter charged with planning for disaster in one of the most dangerous, highly industrialised and densely populated areas in the country.

He exudes calm as he lists the reasons why Teesside is a special case when it comes to industrial danger.

For a start, says Joe, more than ten per cent, of all COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazard) sites in the UK are based in the area. That’s 41 dangerous sites including separate major chemical plants, a steel works and a nuclear power station. County Durham, far more typical, has just one.

But that’s only part of the story. Those sites are very often right next to people’s homes. Many are also close to each other and there’s potential for a so-called ‘domino effect’ where one disaster leads to another. Other potential problems come from the fact that Teesside has possibly the second biggest freight port in the country and an international airport.

Joe, who works at Cleveland Emergency Planning Unit, the country’s first co-ordinated multi-agency centre, with police, ambulance and other agencies, runs through four potential disasters. There’s the chance of a chemical leak, a radioactive leak from the nuclear station at Hartlepool, a plane crash or a disaster at the Redcar steelworks.

He stresses, strongly and often, that the chances of any serious problem in any of these areas are very small. In truth there hasn’t been a very serious accident in living memory.

The 50-year-old COMAH officer also clearly drives his point home that training and large scale exercises are very regular and very serious. Just this year there have been 27 major exercises on COMAH sites. And each site has its own “excellent” specially trained personnel .

With those points firmly in mind, Joe runs through what would happen come the ‘the big one.’ Scenario one, and most likely, would be a major chemical leak. Joe explains what would happen. “En route firefighters would be looking at the Mobile Data Terminal, a computer on every appliance,” he says. “That brings up a plan for that particular site, the risks, the safe locations. We can also look up information about the particular chemical, each one is numbered. There’s so many thousands of them, each with their own risks.

“Meanwhile Fire Control will be touch, providing a safe route to the site. When they arrive they would be met by someone from the company, one of the Site Incident Controllers. A Dynamic Risk Assessment would be made. Number one priority would be life, then property, then environment.”

The police would deal with evacuation, Joe explains, working with council workers who often provide transport and somewhere to stay. Not every worker at the site could be evacuated.

It’s likely a ‘time out’ would be called. This is a high-powered meeting between the chief fire officer, the police chief constable, most senior ambulance manager and the site controller. The chief constable would take the lead and, at that moment, would be the most powerful person in the North-East. The seriousness of the disaster would be rated gold, silver or bronze.

The firefighters may well be wearing Personal Protective Equipment which has self-contained breathing apparatus. It’s very heavy and very arduous to work in and there are visual problems. Each firefighter would work in such equipment for just 20 minutes before being relieved. If possible they stand at a safe distance and spray foam (very effective but detrimental to the environment) or a “water curtain” which can help drag toxic vapours to the ground.

Others will, again with the site controllers, be isolating the source of the leak, a valve or a pipe and probably decanting toxic liquids to be contained safely.

“A key would be to work with other sites, other companies nearby. They might share half their experienced staff to try and contain the leak.”

Many of the key elements to that scenario, the co-operation with onsite experts, the assessment, the time out meeting would be the same in any major emergency.

But there are clear differences in different situations. A major problem at Hartlepool’s nuclear plant is extremely unlikely. There has never been one. Safety is such that no worker at the plant is even allowed a mobile phone on site. Everyone receives specialist training.

In the event of a radiological leak the Fire Brigade would be informed immediately and at all times, but it’s likely much of the detection and isolation work would be carried out by teams on site, although radiation detection metres would be given to fire fighters at the plant.

Secenario three: a plane crash at Durham Tees Valley Airport near Darlington. Durham Fire Brigade take the lead but there is a joint plan in place between the two brigades. The fire training site at the airport is large and is used, with the airport’s permission, for general training by the fire brigade. That’s because foam can be used at the site but can’t be elsewhere. Foam, not water, would nearly always be used on a airplane fire. The airport has large scale trucks and specialist teams would be there from within the airport in seconds. “Those trucks can pump out foam on the move with no time-wasting adjustment. It’s a very useful, very expensive resource,” explains Joe.

Finally we discuss a major accident at the steelworks. Once again the firefighers would have specialist heat resistant clothing which can be limiting to movement and hard to work in for long. If possible the firemen and women would try to fight the fire from distance. Water from a normal fire engine water can be pumped at a rate at 750 gallons a minute. However a high volume pump is kept at Peterlee which can pump at 4,500 gallons per minute and can take water from up to two kilometres out to sea.

If the disaster is big enough firefighers would head to Teesside from elsewhere in there region and, ultimately, from the whole country.

It’s all very impressive.

And yet , according to chief fire officer, Ian Hayton, is currently grappling with what will eventually amount to a 25 per cent cut in his budget knowing that safety on COMAH sites can not be compromised in any circumstances. He knows up to 75 out of his 500 firefighters could be lost, although the actual grant settlement won’t be announced by the Government until Thursday, December 20.

Most of the Government grant is calculated on a simple head count. Cleveland, population just 560,000, receives the least. Other, richer areas, make up that money from the local council tax precept, not an option for our cash-strapped councils. And yet the potential threat from industrial sites is just as great.

“I understand there’s always winners and losers in any settlement,” sighs Ian. “But why are we always the losers.”