Alfonso Mcclain V I think they would prefer that you didn't "meat" them. :-) But I'm with you all, the crew truly did everything they possibly could, obviously well aware of the dangers if they failed, and moving that much material by hand in severe weather was true dedication. Sometimes you do everything you possibly can right only to be taught a lesson in humility by Mother Nature herself. This was a rare example of a company that truly did the best they could, even giving warning to the authorities when it was clear they were going to fail and not leaving authorities to figure it out for themselves (that said, just getting word to authorities in a severe hurricane can sometimes be challenging depending upon how much communications infrastructure is still functioning).
Yes, the workers seem to have taken every measure possible to mitigate the situation. You would never know it going by the way this story was reported by some of the largely Texas hating West Coast media...really pathetic the level some people will go to to divert the attention of problems of their state onto another. Harvey was a disaster of unfathomable proportion, not really an appropriate time to be throwing stones.
Probably a fat bonus and some kind of plaque or small statue on the facility property. They obviously knew it was going to be a long few days - but nothing like this. Damn I would have volunteered for that in a heartbeat.
In this day and age they likely would have been told by management "You did what you were paid to do, you have our thanks but not a bonus!" which is why more and more people are learning exactly what their job entails so that should a disaster happen they can make the decision to pitch in or say "Not my problem, it's not in the job description." If you treat your workers like grunts they will treat your company like it's a paycheck - if you treat your workers like they are family they will treat your company like it's their home!
CSB investigation finding on this incident : "Sometimes shit just gets so bad there ain't nothing gonna stop it." And respect to that crew, they truly did their best.
I honestly have to give Arkema high marks for doing what they could to at least *delay* the inevitable, if not *prevent* it, and then actually disclosing to emergency response agencies the dangers of the products that their company produced and stored on-site. They certainly knew the chemical hazards their facility produced and stored, their workers knew the hazards, and went way above and beyond to prevent a worse disaster than what actually occurred by moving the biggest hazards to areas of least risk.
They did a great job managing the incident up to dealing with the public. That's been handled horribly. There's a good reason why the Incident Command System has a big portion dedicated to public relations and media/message management.
Real talk. Usually watching these videos you get frustrated at the company/management, and you start saying to yourself, “Really?? Y’all should have known better than to allow that to happen!” But on this one it was more, “Man, y’all really did try to do everything y’all could, the weather was just too much.”
@Joshua: Pretty much, yea. Though as another commenter pointed out, this company kinda dropped the ball hard on their toes regarding public relations about the whole incident, they were still totally on top of their game regarding internal disaster management.
@@tsp159 They informed emergency responders about the risk. It is the duty of those responders to manage the public in a situation such as this. 6:00 discusses this. Emergency response made a mistake in weighing the risks of dealing with the greater weather emergency versus the risk posed by the chemicals.
A+ to the workers who stayed behind, continued to move the chemicals, and coordinate with evacuation officials at their own risk. The CSB often uncovers complete ineptitude, negligence, or unidentified modes of failure. The failure here seems to be the lack of preparation for a >500 year flood event. EDIT: Hurricane Harvey produced flooding beyond the '500 year flood' expected risk. The workers were prepared for the '500 year flood' risk and acted correctly in moving the chemicals in trucks to high ground.
I suppose the insurance company did notice the increased risk of flooding in the updated map, but the map was made in 2016 and the hurricane occurred the next year in 2017. As mentioned at 10:27 even if they had looked at extreme flooding, there is little existing guidance from officials (or wisdom from past floods of this magnitude) to aid in that kind of preparation.
Am I wrong or has this particular plant been the subject of another recent CSB case? If so, it seems like they learned a few things. Kudos to all involved regardless.
The CSB released a preliminary animation of this incident in November. This video has almost identical content but with fancier graphics, new information about the risk / unlikelihood of the flood, and the nearby highway.
Was it really a greater than 500 year flood....or was the 500 year flood map just severely out of date or miscalculated? The Houston area probably adds impervious cover faster than Bubba goes back for seconds at Golden Corral.
Very glad to see they didn't throw the ride-out crew under the bus. This was an extremely difficult situation handled about as well as it could have been under the circumstances, and an excellent learning opportunity for the industry.
The Government bunkers would not survive a flood event of this magnitude. At the end of the day they are holes in the ground and if the water rose high enough they too would flood.
@TheBrodsterBoy I dunno what nuclear weapons sites you have but around here they're just put in hangars up at wright-patt, they're all piled up in just one hangar a good-sized flood could probably take it out
BS Here they call any building built to withstand a Hurricane, Category 5, I built my home to those standards. Now off you go you dumb USA SHACK dwellers and play with your guns.
I love these re-enactments/animations; they provide significantly better detail than news reports, and the graphics get more realistic with each video released.
Contingence yes the reenactments are much more accurate because of time sensitive material which is great because the news can't produce that they're under such a time restraint to produce news. wrong or right.
I am a Canadian, and I consider the USCSB and other investigation groups as heroic. Despite the subject material often being tragic or morbid, we cannot improve conditions without understanding how things go wrong.
Everyone in America is Irish, as they are Spanish, English, Scottish, French and Dutch, so, although I respect you are proud of your Irish heritage, I advise you not to tell people outside of the US you're 'Irish'
I actually found the USCSB in a recommended video from a Worksafe British Colombia video-- they also do some excellent work in process and plant safety for the resource extraction industry.
Every member on that skeleton team were heros. They were in harm's way far beyond what was ever expected and they continued to take additional measures beyond those that were likely planned in order to try and mitigate a disaster. What a great team. I hope they were acknowledged for their efforts.
This event shows how much workers will care about a situation when a company cares as much as Arkema does. Kudos to both the brave workers and the management that ensured all possible steps were taken!
Honestly, I'd say they *did* prevent a disaster. There was a release and a fire, but it happened on emergency response's terms and injury was fairly limited. It's an incident, sure, but not a disaster.
Hope those workers got the recognition they deserve for going above and beyond trying to stop this from happening. Moving containers by hand, at night during a hurricane, even I would have bailed before that. Well done men.
My middle school science teacher was cleaning out her lab once and uncovered a bottle she had never seen before. The moment she saw the label she called the fire department. They had to call in a bomb squad, either from the nearby city or from the State Patrol. The label contained a Hazard diamond for Class 5, subclass 2: Organic Peroxides. Finding an unrefridgerated container of Organic Peroxide is like uncovering a land mine in your front yard.
You would still have to plan for a worse-than-500-year flood, though. What's industry practice on that? Locating backup generators on high ground is definitely something to think about though, and ensuring the staff had a boat available, even just for moving goods (not storage).
One other thing, which might be practical as standard practice, would be to ensure that emergency crews that may need to enter a danger zone near a chemical plant can readily equipped with protective gear suitable for such purposes. That might have allowed injuries to be avoided completely. On the other hand, the video doesn't really say whether any of the injuries did any significant lasting damage to the people involved for mitigation efforts be considered anything less than a complete success. It sounds like fire damage was limited to trailers that would otherwise have been damaged--likely beyond repair--by the flood.
They could have shipped everything out of the plant before the storm hit, but it doesn't sound like they anticipated how high the flood was going to get.
After this incident, Arkema was sued by the local county on behalf of EMTs & Police. A first responder working in a community downwind of the fire is on a lung transplant list. The case and all charges were dismissed in early October 2020. While the detrimental health effects of the release are tragic and unfair, it's pretty clear from the CSB's investigation that Arkema did everything that could reasonably be expected to prevent a release.
Yeah, or maybe a bit more elevation in the vulnerable areas. However, as this was a really rare event, it probably would cost too much for something unlikely to happen within the lifespan of the factory.
@@superslasher3889 They discussed that, at the time of construction, the flood maps showed very little flooding risk. They hadn't seen the updated maps and couldn't revise their facility to respond to the updated risk.
Or preemptively destroying all the stored peroxides when the water rose high enough to potentially threaten the integrity of the cold-storage system, which would've been extremely difficult to do in a controlled manner in the remaining time available.
I believe the Arkema team did the best they could to prevent a disaster, unfortunately their preparations were not sufficient given the extreme storm conditions. It is an excellent example how even a company that seems well prepared for an emergency and acts accordingly can still have a hazardous release because of outdated safety plans and lack of guidance (whether industry or government) for them.
Unbearable Pain,if one pays attention throughout the year,this same "go after a company" mentality happens all the time. Every plant or business has upsets,and then the media just drives it. Every cancer,every scab on a wound for the next 50 years will be blamed on this one incident.Lawyers really are leeches in my book.
We couldn't afford to build anything if it had to all be able to beat mother nature. I feel this company did absolutly everything right. The storm was just bigger than anyone ever thought possible. Bad things will continue to happen no matter how much planning.
Simon Richard they lost power... I’m sure they thought about it, and could have done so with Spain sections of pipe and power. But I don’t think it would have made a difference with just duct tape and twine. The truck would have still flooded. Or the height of the water would have made moving the trailers difficult as the water was high enough for them to float... Give em credit. They kept the rest of the building and all of its contents as well as other chemicals from burning! (Which could’ve been a mega disaster!)
@@simonrichard9873 could they have? That seems like a very complicated thing to do if you are not already prepared and goes out out of the question once the storm hits.
The preliminary animation was really good... but this is just incredible. The level of detail in the animation was just spectacular. I love USCSB videos!
I'm glad to see this is one of those times where the situation was really just out of their hands, rather than incompetence or ineptitude. Round of applause for the workers doing everything they could possibly do!
I think the insurance guys looked at the flood response plan and said "make sure you can load everything stored into refer trucks if there's a hurricane and all should be good." They didn't count on the vehicles flooding, but the refrigerator are mounted high and carry enough fuel to run several days unattended.
Thank you. You can't plan against everything. There is inherent risk in everything we do. We need to mitigate that risk but that doesn't mean there is now zero risk. Bad things will happen however we should strive to reduce the frequency and severity.
Actually you can plan for everything, in the end it becomes a cost/benefit analysis. There are lots of places that extreme weather is not an issue. There is no such thing as an accident, someone is always at fault.
In what way did they act unsafely? As far as I understand the properties of the chemical, it would take a whole while for it to warm up before it would combust. And even if it did so in your hand, you'd still have enough time to drop it and run.
@@TheAgamemnon911To be fair, the danger isn't in the chemical in your hand, its the flood water. It is always a really bad idea to start wading in to flood waters. Doubly so at night. The fact you're carrying reactive peroxides in your hand is just the cherry on top. The men performed outstandingly well, but I agree with Mike on this. Wading in to flood waters is always super dangerous. Don't know what's under there, you don't know what's in it, you could be swept away, or fall in to a newly formed ditch and drown, or get cut and get a horrific infection that can put you in to septic shock.
It's fascinating how this video is such a contrast to other CSB videos. It really seems like Arkema did everything they possibly could to prepare but it just wasn't enough for a once-in-a-lifetime storm event.
Through the hard work of their dedicated employees, effective leadership, and good communication with first responders, Arkema probably saved lives. Good job.
That ride out crew did a fantastic job. Their commitment should be highly praised. They did everything they could, when they could. It's just when you are fighting a weather event of this magnitude it creates impossible odds.
My hat off to the ride out crew at Arkema- this may have been a serious disaster, but no one can say that they didn't do everything in their power to stave it off to the bitter end.
That rideout crew went above and beyond the call of duty. Tragic that even after all their backbreaking efforts they were not able to stop the peroxide decomp and subsequent fires and vapor release.
But they did everything that they could and no one died as a result of the incident. The company did the best that they could to prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime event and had no way of knowing that Harvey would be even worse.
Love the production quality now. I remember seeing the other video pertaining to this case. Honestly, they did a fantastic job to try to prevent the disaster.
Imagine having the job of those workers. I do electrical work and I couldn't imagine moving tons of material in the middle of a hurricane. That is a pretty bad ass job and those guys deserve so much respect.
Stellar quality production. Management & the workers at Arkema should receive recognition for all the planning, preparation & execution in extreme conditions.
5:19 wow. These workers were going above and beyond. Flooding everywhere, most people aren't going to work, worrying about their homes and families and these workers are moving things by hand through flood waters a piece at a time.
I'm sure they also understood what was at stake AND they live in the community that would be impacted. It's nice to see that most everyone gives props to the company & crews responding to an ever worsening hurricane event... such that nothing exploded and no one was killed.
I live in Houston and went through Harvey. It felt like no matter how much you planned and prepared, that storm threw everything off. But, I'm glad that many people, like the Arkema team, kept going and caring about those around them. #HoustonStrong
I rarely comment, but I love these videos, have watched every one that you guys have posted. Keep up the great work, making the world a safer place by spreading knowledge about others' mistakes so we can all learn from them.
When many plants on the gulf coast put in new electrical substations they are highly elevated, 20 feet up or more in some cases. If this plant rebuilds they'll likely raise up everything. At least they have a major flood mark to go by now.
... these guys had that, but it was just not enough, because nobody thought, that the water levels would become THAT high. Another problem is, that even when the generators would be operational, parts of the refrigeration equipment would get shorted at that time. It is honestly hard to prevent this sort of things, and the only solution is not to build simmilar industry in areas, which are susceptible to flooding. It is simmilar with tsunami zones - nobody will build a nuclear powerplant, such as fukushima daiichi in a tsunami zone again - because it does not matter what sort of precautions you take, there is always potential for a disaster...
chloralhydrate The other part of the problem is that any floodwaters entering the refrigerated warehouse, even if the refrigeration equipment remains fully functional, will be extremely warm compared to the refrigeration needs of the stored chemicals. The refrigeration would keep the *air* chilled to the critical temperature until waters were near the ceiling if all electrical and HVAC were moved to the roof and ceiling...but meanwhile the chemicals are all left sitting in 80-90°F floodwaters and start decomposing anyhow. The only viable solution is to build all the critical infrastructure much higher and also build it to withstand very high winds (which greater elevation will expose everything to in a severe hurricane or tornado).
@@chloralhydrate - The problem with that is that probably half of the country is susceptible to flooding some time. You have 1,000 & 500 and 100 year floods. It is unrealistic to move everyone on top of hills. Most farmland is in flood zones as well. This is unfortunately the way a lot of safety precautions are arrived at. Personal experience makes you wiser. We used to call it the school of hard knocks.
@@ethanpoole3443 It might be worth looking into making future warehouses of these types watertight, so the chemicals inside can be kept in chilled air rather than relatively-warm floodwaters.
Those workers deserve to be honored for all their preparation, response, & proactive measures. Arkema was prepared to the best of their ability and knowledge, unfortunately Nature is so unpredictable and powerful, at the end, it still wasn’t enough.
@@WVG103 "you can't just beat Nature..." funny seeing as climate change is a major reason why these type disasters are occuring on a yearly basis. we "beat" nature and now it's beating the shit out of us.
The reports/investigations are comprehensive and well documented. This in turn allows for these summary vids that are very informative. Definitely thumbs up to investigators.
Arkema probably has a similar system in place for its peroxides much like a Grocery store or pharmaceutical manufacturer has, called a "Cold Chain"; its a minimum amount of time a product can spend outside of the cooler before it becomes too warm and has to be disposed of.
Don't worry, the peroxides in jugs would not be catching fire just yet, they need to be decomposed in a closed room for hours after they starts to warm up to catch on fire. If you place them on a vented area, as a small amount, they would be safe even carried by bare hand.
Are American nuclear plants built the same at Fukushima? There probably won't be any serious accidents to document since they are so cautious. Documentary on near misses would be interesting.
This is like watching a movie! Eccellent work, I'm stunned at the number of "non-experts" do watch and enjoy this videos! Keep it up spreading safety culture
Another fantastic video. The detail and animations are top notch. The sputtering firework-like sparks when the transformer is flooded... The refrigeration unit on the semi with accurate "Thermo King" branding. What's the point? The point is to make people feel present, to remind people this was a real event and not just a boring safety example. Kudos to the video production team.
What really astounds me about this incident is that, on the surface, the company and workers did everything "right" - they took reasonable precautions against a 100-year, even some against a 500-year flood, and the rideout crew stayed and worked tirelessly until the very moment they had to evacuate not only to prevent an incident, but to reduce the impact of an incident once it was inevitable. So many times, we've heard of negligence, complacency, or outright greed-induced malice harming people, but the Arkema plant did (as far as I can tell) everything that could be expected. But even this was not enough to prevent an incident and exposing some responders and personnel to harmful chemicals. Texas, my home state, is notorious for incidents involving chemical and petrochemical industry, and while it's heartening to hear that nobody was killed as a result of this incident, Harvey is no longer a thousand-year flood. It will happen again. My fellow Texans absolutely must take action, including demanding action from their elected representatives, to reduce the impact of storms as they increase in intensity, and to make sure standards are in place to protect workers, residents, and yes, even business owners from emergencies and incidents. This was one of my favorite CSB cases, and even the full report was a fascinating read.
It makes me happy to see this comment section giving credit to the workers and even the company. This is by far the least negligence-filled video I've seen from USCSB
I wish I could personally thank every single one of those people int the ride-out crew. I like to see that someone knew what they were doing, and no one was seriously injured or killed during this event.
I lived about 5 miles from that plant. During Harvey, you could have pretty much boated all the way to the Gulf of Mexico from there. There wasn't anything those guys at Arkema could do. No one had good data, no one knew that Harvey would come in, then go back out into the gulf, strengthen, and come back in again. That gets pretty far afield of your 'what if's' scenarios.
aww dude new chemical safety board video drop everything edit: oh man i wanted to know exactly about this when i heard about it live! organic peroxides are no joke
I love these videos, but I like this one in particular. I'm a volunteer firefighter, and the next town over has an Arkema plant just like this one. This is important information, and you guys always do such a great job presenting it.
The crew that was left at the plant did a heroic job of trying to protect the plant and chemicals. We had 51.88" of rain in my area not far from this plant. The official gauge failed before the rain stopped. Some areas recieved as much as 62". My home had never flooded before.... I had a couple of inches of water in my home. Many lost everything they had. This storm just sat over us for the longest time.
The new, non-religious term for what used to be called an act of God is Force Majeure - "superior force." That really doesn't apply here. If you would have written a contingency plan to cover something as bad as Hurricane Harvey, they would have fired you and had you taken away in a straitjacket. People would have thought, "that's insane. That'll never happen. Ever." Except that it did. You know you're doing everything generally right when you have a catastrophe of this magnitude and OSHA only fines you $91,234. The real cure for this kind of incident is to go back in the lab and invent a room-termperature-stable product that does what these chemicals do.
After studying various incidents related to flooding, it seems like a lot of facilities keep back up generators at lower ground or even underground (Fukushima power plant). It seems like building storage for generators on higher ground, even if you have to construct higher ground, can give extra time in an emergency. I have my home generator 4 feet off the ground. If the water gets up to the generator, I have already had to get the heck out of the house. Props to the workers who stayed behind and did everything they could. Both at this incident and at Fukushima. Definitely some heros.
Excellent Animations, your videos keep getting better! Your mission of workplace safety is ADMIRABLE!!!! keep up the good work! I have enjoyed watching your videos and investigations. Hopefully lives will be saved in the future, THANK YOU!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this story is exemplary of all that could reasonably be done given the situation. Right? Because I'm not seeing the failure of the company or workers.
Which even with my distrust of corporate America I think is complete bullshit. How the hell do you plan for a 1000 year event? The company went above and beyond with the information they had, and the Rideout crew were/are supermen.
The only thing they missed was loading the peroxides on trailers and getting them to an alternate location. They just didn’t think the water would keep rising, until it was too late.
@@nocalsteve That's with hindsight. The warehouses were built to survive a 100 year flood and the trailers had a safe area for a 500 year flood. Harvey was a 1000 year flood and put down enough water to flood the high ground. Trying to evacuate early on would have been a massive risk on crowded flooded roads, imagine what would have happened if a vehicle crashed and spilled peroxide in the midst of a traffic jam.
1:50 you can't fault these guys, they did everything possible and worked their asses off to protect those products....sometimes shit just happens no matter what
Man, cheers to that company for doing everything it could, it’s hard to plan for something like a hurricane. That crew that did their best to move all the product were the real MVPs.
They did everything right from the moment the storm was detected. There's a few things that could have been done better back during construction of the facility, but given that there wasn't a flood risk map at the time I can't really fault them that much.
Yooooo, mad props to all those ride-out workers! Sure, it turned out to not be enough, but they damn well tried. Good on management, too, for issuing evacuation orders and alerting authorities. Somethin' I gotta wonder... Maybe they would've been able to ride it out the whole way if the backup generators were higher up? I know there's a cost/benefit debate there, but perhaps just a foot or two more would've given them that extra time they needed.
