Union Carbide Executive Summary

wing tank was also failing. It was too much of a coincidence for two pumps to fail at the same time—it was

On a cold day in October, at or around the time of 11:30am, witnesses described watching a tanker truck roll over on its side and start to leak a liquid, presumably gasoline. One witness immediately called for emergency assistance. Within 10 minutes, the fire department arrived on scene with the Battalion Chief (BC) in charge of the situation. The BC notified the command center and requested the police department and extra response from the fire department; along with the State Department of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Taum Sauk Upper Reservoir Failure occurred on December 14, 2005, ironically on the same day the annual drill between Ameren and local emergency personnel was scheduled to be held. This failure released 1.5 billion gallons of water down Profitt Mountain and into Johnson Shut-Ins State Park. This was an emergency event that impacted one family’s home, and three vehicles traveling on Route N.

According to the IEEE code of ethics, “a person must disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment.” The engineers here are guilty for not following the IEEE as they would have known the implications of such a disaster and should have tried to warn the company heads or if need be to be more radical, the higher authority which would have stopped

Although we do not yet fully understand the entire scale of the incident, what we do know is… (type in situation here). We expect to determine the cause and ramifications of the event as we continue our investigation. As we move forward we intend to… (type in action). As we move along it is our intent to keep you up to date on the progress being made here at Clorox. If you need to contact us we have an emergency line for all employees and family members at…(enter contact info).

On 10/11/2015 SO EMT Perez was dispatched to FC-218 regaurding an issue concerning a broken power outlet. SO EMT Perez knocked and announced his presence at the door and was greeted by the resident, A Mr. Robert O'Steen. Mr. Robert O'Steen stated that he was not recieveing power to the outlet where his phone was plugged into and believed it might of been the result of a flood he had in his apartment a couple days prior. SO EMT Perez examined the outlet and the circut breaker, after insuring there was no water and condensation on the panel SO EMT Perez reset the panel and the power supply was reconnected to the outlet. After insuring Mr. Robert O'Steen needed nothing else SO EMT Perez showed himself out of the apartment. SO EMT Perez cleared

On December 2nd 1984, 40 tons of deadly Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) gas and other toxic gasses were released in to the atmosphere from Union Carbide India, Limited’s (UCIL) plant in Bhopal, India. Water meant for cleaning internal pipes was mixed with MIC, due to a faulty valve, which led to an exothermic reaction. The pressure and heat from this powerful reaction led to break down of a safety valve which then caused MIC gas to be released into the atmosphere.

Use backup controls, for example, double mechanical pump seals, to prevent the release of this material due to equipment fiasco.

Change in the amount of water because the cylinder was not sealed well and the water was leaking. All instruments have instrumental uncertainties. In this case, the tuning fork may not have been exactly 480 Hz. The input values were not collected with full accuracy (rounding errors, and reading the numbers off the cylinder).

Crews were dispatched to a full involved house. E-44 was first on scene to find 1 house fully evolved and a secondary residence to the north 50% involved. E-44 placed engine in front of secondary residence and crew started fire attack on the secondary residence by deploying a 2 ½ inch hose line to the front of the residence to stop forward movement of fire. E-43 laid 5 inch hose from the hydrant located at knobcone and silver pine to E-44. Once water supply was established E-44 engaged primary residence with monitor on E-44. E-43 proceeded to park at the primary residence drive way and deployed two 1 ¾ hand line to the primary residence. E-2 established water supply from corner of Knobcone and Pepperwood. Once fire was knocked down on secondary structure all hose lines were place in service on to the primary residence. Extended Knock down time on primary residence due to extreme fuel loading in and surround the residence and the residence unsafe to enter. Fire crews never entered the foot print of the primary residence during extinguishment due to dangerous conditions.

A presidential committee was designated to review the accident. After various months the investigators wrote a report, showing an O-Ring seal rupture as the main reason of the explosion. Due to the freezing climate, the ring didn’t expand to hold the seal firm, letting hot vapors to escape.

Four weeks before the explosion, there was a discovery that a worker had bumped the control switch where it had moved a portion of the pipe through the BOP, that caused chunks of rubber that were found in the drilling fluid. No action was taken to fix the problem (Cook,2010).

The mechanic reported there were several issues on the rig and there were months of the drill kicking due to resistance and high gas pressures (Washburn & McClatchy Newspapers, 2010). A stuck pipe was at the drilling site, and the plug was taken out of the well. There were concerns in regards to the safety of employees, inadequate equipment, and the reliability of the rig. The perception of the safety of the rig was misconceived due to data being interested inaccurately by employees. There was damage done to the blowout preventor months before the explosion. Workers were responsible for maintaining the rig and evaluating the safety of the rig. There were sparks on the vessel, and the lights flickered before strong vibrations. Employees report hearing a thud and then an explosion followed shortly after. As a result of the blast, seals were blown, and barriers exploded. There were less than five minutes to spare between the explosion and evacuation. It was suggested the ignition source released gas and the air intakes were exhausted as the main generators emitted hot gas (McGill & Schwartz, 2010). The explosion could have resulted due to high pressures caused by the hot gas emitted. The pressure test was not assessed or interpreted accurately, the company's neglected signs of the pipe, and recommendations were ignored by BP. There was a hole in the cement, there were not

"With continued treatment, including flushing the system with chlorine and rinsing it, as well as injecting sodium hydrochloride for safety, three of the four wells should be able to come back online

Prior to the disaster, the company had been facing a financial crisis for many years because the sale of pesticides had been fallen (Joseph, Kaszniak and Long 2005, p. 544). Due to the budget cuts, many plant operators received insufficient training on operations and safety awareness (Mannan 2012, p. 2649). As shown in Figure 1, there was a decrease in the length of training programmes for plant operators from 18 months in 1975 to only one month in December 1984 (Chouhan 2005, p. 207). Therefore, with a lack of the knowledge of runaway reactions occurring in the storage tank when the accident happened, many workers could not immediately take any emergency action to lessen the risk of the MIC escape from the storage tank (Chouhan 2005, p. 207). To connect the tank with another