Emergency response teams enhancing safety for Shell, Olin

It may not be a very appealing name, but the service Shell's "RAT" (response action team) professionals provide to ensure the health and safety of its workers and the community at large cannot be understated.

Originally created for Shell through individual manufacturing sites, these teams provide technical support to transportation carriers, government agencies and the public during incidents that involve Shell products.

The team that Shell Emergency Response Specialist Greg Hallet belongs to comprises 25 multiskilled members.

"We have Ph.D.s on our team, we have engineers and we have different product specialists, as well as people like myself who come from a firefighter/EMS background," he said.

Hallet said Shell's response action team stands ready to respond at the required level to manage any incident.

"As industry partners with Class I railroads, the Railway Association of Canada and response contractors, [we have] a greater response organization built across Canada and the United States," he said in a presentation titled "Lifecycle of a Spill" at the CHEMTREC International Hazmat Summit held recently in Houston. "Training together helps us prepare all partners for a more effective and safe response."

In case of an emergency, it's also reassuring to know CHEMTREC is just a phone call away.

CHEMTREC stands for the Chemical Transportation Emergency Center, a 24-hour emergency response service. Plant sites, terminals, warehouses, first responders, carriers, consumers, medical personnel, regulators, shippers and private citizens rely on CHEMTREC to provide assistance in handling incidents involving hazardous materials.

When any of these entities calls CHEMTREC for information, the first thing CHEMTREC does is assess the situation by verifying the caller's name, phone number and organization; the location of the incident; and the type of facility where it occurred.

"It's pretty basic stuff," said Joe Milazzo, director of the operations center for CHEMTREC.

Less basic is determining the severity of the incident to identify the type of assistance the caller needs.

"That's probably the biggest challenge there is," Milazzo said. "I can only go by what the caller says."

CHEMTREC assists callers by reaching out to its network of resources, including shippers, toxicologists and other industry experts, and providing the incident details and needs of the caller to emergency contacts.

Chris Baxter, the distribution and transportation leader of Olin Corp.'s Responsible Care division, who represented the Chlorine Institute (CI) at the summit, explained CI's Chlorine Emergency Plan (CHLOREP), which addresses chlorine emergencies in transportation as well as emergencies affecting smaller end users.

"Our mission is to prepare and educate our participants to make sure they're ready to respond to chlorine emergencies," Baxter said. "We want to make sure they know what to do, that they are capable of responding, and they've got the best tools to respond.

"We want to make sure that we have a talented and professional response to all chlorine emergencies."

Quoting author Stephen King, Hallet concluded, "There's no harm in hoping for the best, as long as you're prepared for the worst."