Fertilizer blast: Could it happen here?

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This article was published 19/04/2013 (4565 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The plant in West, Texas, that exploded Wednesday night was primarily manufacturing anhydrous ammonia, a common agricultural fertilizer also produced locally at the Koch LLC plant in Brandon’s east end.

Initial reports put the fatalities from the thunderous explosion as high as 15, but by late in the day Thursday, authorities backed away from any estimate and refused to elaborate. More than 160 people were hurt in the blast that created a shock wave equal to a 2.1-magnitude seismic event about 40 kilometres outside of Waco, Texas.

According to several news reports, the plant, which is considerably smaller than the Koch plant in Brandon, had as much as 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia on hand, and some residents of the town of 2,000 are now dealing with the dangerous fumes from the chemical.

The Brandon Koch plant is located on the east side of 17th Street East, across from an industrial park on Douglas Street, with little development surrounding the site.

Anhydrous ammonia (often referred to as just ammonia) is produced at the local plant, along with urea, UAN solutions, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate solution, ammonium polyphosphate and ammonium thiosulfate.

After several attempts by the Sun, Koch did not provide a comment on the safety measures it has in place.

Based on what authorities did in Texas, if an identical explosion occurred at the Brandon plant, two square miles around the blast might be evacuated based on normal prevailing winds, encompassing two elementary schools, dozens of homes and the Brandon Regional Health Centre.

According to Brian Kayes, director of risk and emergency management, city government could declare a state of local emergency in such an event, which greatly increases the powers of council.

“We would have access to exceptional powers, including trespass on property, making use of private equipment … a whole variety of very strong powers,” he said.

“It’s not used very often, but it is used when there can be really no argument about what’s going to happen. If we need the Greyhound buses and they happen to be in town, then we would be using the Greyhound buses, that kind of thing, that’s the power.”

Kayes said the city declared a state of emergency during the 2011 flood, which allowed the city to stop people from trespassing on what would normally be public park land.

In the event there are dozens of victims from such a devastating emergency, a centralized triage point would be established and patients would be transported to the appropriate emergency rooms outside of the city, according to a Prairie Mountain Health spokesperson.

“Prairie Mountain Health has plans in place that would immediately be implemented to deal with incidents that cause influx of patients to our emergency rooms,” a spokesperson for Prairie Mountain Health said in an email.

Although the scenario is unprecedented in the area, the health authority said it has a disaster plan in place if the hospital was ordered to be evacuated and it says it will be reviewing its emergency plans in the wake of the recent amalgamation of the regional health authorities.

If a total evacuation of the hospital was issued, the health authority said it would co-ordinate with the city and determine how quickly patients need to be moved and it also works with provincial disaster management and the Medical Transportation Co-ordination Centre.

“These two agencies allow for the co-ordinated provincial response to disasters within the health care sector. If the facility is compromised to the point the clients are at risk, the clients would be immediately moved to a safe location,” the spokesperson said.

Garry Bell, deputy chief of Brandon Fire and Emergency Services, said the department hopes nothing like it happens in Brandon, but said close ties with the Koch plant is key if an emergency like the one in Texas were to happen in the Wheat City.

“We’ve had a great working relationship with this plant here in Brandon for many years,” he said.

A team made up of Koch employees from the plant are trained firefighters and city firefighters would provide backup, Bell said.

“We would provide support to whatever they need,” he said.

If the fire department is faced with an emergency situation that is beyond its capability, manpower can be drawn from other areas in Westman through the Grand Valley Mutual Aid District, of which Bell is the co-ordinator. The district includes volunteer fire departments in Souris, Wawanesa, Carberry and Cypress, emergency responders from CFB Shilo and industrial partners, including Koch.

“You have to also recognize that if something went on like this (the explosion in Texas), we would be calling for help from the office of the fire commissioner,” Bell said. “This would be a significant incident. We wouldn’t just be focusing on our staff that are on shift … we would have all kinds of people from the city involved as well.”

In the case of such a devastating event, Bell said many firefighters are traditionally chomping at the bit to help.

“When 9/11 occurred, our staff was lining up going ‘send me on a bus, send me on a plane, I’ll go down,’ people want to help, and that’s admirable.”

While nearby CFB Shilo can offer soldiers to help in such a crisis, Bell said emergency responders don’t generally write them into plans, in the event none are available because of overseas deployment.

But sometimes, manpower simply isn’t what’s required. If the fire is overwhelming, it’s a matter of keeping people away and playing the waiting game.

“Sometimes your best tool in the box is knowing your limitations and keep people away … we would certainly want to err on the side of caution.”

While it is said water should not be used for firefighting directly with the ammonia since it will result in heating it up, Bell said the chemical is attracted to moisture and vapour can be used to contain a leak and fans can be used to simply blow it away.

In the case of Texas, a fire already engulfed the plant and the anhydrous ammonia exploded when it came in contact with the flames, according to several news reports.

“We do train to deal with anhydrous in those forms, because a lot of it is moving on trucks and on trailers in the community,” Bell said. “We are more used to dealing with the product like that then we are dealing with the explosion or aftermath.”

» gbruce@brandonsun.com