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 UK industry has yet to fully take on board a number of key lessons from the Buncefield disaster, according to Paul Frankland, assistant vice president of Sembcorp Protection Group. Among the unaddressed issues that concern him most are: the clearly unrealistic belief that the worse-case scenario will never happen; that the only risks to worry about are those within the boundaries of the site; and that the local emergency services will be able to tackle anything that fate throws at them.
Frankland believes that the current global recession is having an adverse impact on managements’ willingness to implement robust emergency preparedness plans, to invest in adequate training, and undertake full-scale exercising and testing of every part of the emergency arrangements. Many companies, he believes, have yet to even audit their emergency preparedness arrangements in the light of the Buncefield explosion and subsequent reports.
As an example of his concerns Frankland points to how few high-hazard locations have a fully operational off-site emergency control centre. “On-site facilities can so easily be destroyed or rendered inaccessible in a worse-case scenario incident, as was demonstrated by the Buncefield explosion. At a major incident, every minute really does count, so having to first re-establish an emergency control centre simply is not a viable option.” Even where organisations have established robust facilities and procedures, Frankland argues that too many are succumbing to economic pressures and are failing to carry out regular full-scale exercising and testing.
“The ‘tick the box’ approach is still far too prevalent, and this invariably leads to totally unfounded confidence in the emergency arrangements; misplaced faith that often comes to light only when a disaster has already struck,” argues Paul Frankland. “Full-scale testing is the only way to be certain that the organisation and the local emergency services have the necessary resources, and that the essential on-site firefighting, medical and security skills are in place.”
Sembcorp
•Date: 28th August 2009• Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: BC: manufacturing
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