Thousands take shelter following Dow leak Officials say
the emergency warning system worked
By GEORGE MATHEWSON and PAUL MORDEN of The Observer
Thousands
of people took shelter in their homes last night after a ruptured disk at Dow
Chemical released a strong chemical odour over Corunna and parts of south
Sarnia.
Butyl
acrylate and styrene vapour escaped after about 70 litres of waste oil spilled
at Dow's latex plant on Vidal Street around 5:30 p.m.
As
winds carried the odour south, road-blocks went up around Corunna and the
Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Warnings were broadcast over radio stations and
cable TV advising residents to remain indoors, close windows and shut off
furnaces. A telephone call-out system was also activated, contacting 2,400
residents in Corunna and Froomfield within 20 minutes.
One
Dow employee was taken to hospital as a precaution. He was assessed and
released, said spokeswoman Birgit Lacey.
Reserve
resident Catherine Thomason said one of her seven-year-old twins came in from
playing outside to report she could smell an odour.
"It
smelled like if you opened up a mushroom," Thomason said. "The whole
house had a horrible smell."
Thomason
said her tongue became swollen and her throat felt dry. Two of her children
also felt sick, she said "Everyone
started to feel light-headed."
Corunna
resident Frank Spizzirri was outside walking with his wife and young daughter
around 6 p.m. when they encountered the odour.
"I
thought someone was spray-painting a vehicle," he said. "I could
taste it. It was like you could feel it in your mouth."
As
they continued walking, a man hailed them from a doorway on Albert Street.
"He
said, you guys better get home. There's been a spill and you should be
indoors. We rushed home," Spizzirri said.
Styrene
and butyl acrylate are colourless liquids used in the production of acrylic
latex, which is used in adhesives and paint. Butyl acrylate can cause eye,
skin and respiratory irritation and is toxic to animals.
Both
chemicals are extremely odourous and can be smelled at levels far below
Ontario exposure limits. Dow employees conducted downwind air monitoring but
the concentrations were too low to register on their equipment, Lacey said.
St.
Clair Township Fire Chief Roy Dewhirst said the emergency warning system
worked well in Corunna. But residents would have been alerted even sooner with
a siren system.
"The
winds were out of the north, and those are the ones that get us," he
said. "If the winds had been out of the south it would have been over the
whole city."
Cal
Gardner, Sarnia's emergency co-ordinator, said the release was a good test of
the public warning system, because it originated in one jurisdiction and moved
into two others.
"That's
what we're trying to get across in meetings (with industry and municipal
leaders). There are no political borders for this stuff."
Sarnia
Police Deputy Chief Mike Brown said Dow issued a Code 8 before 6 p.m.,
notifying police that vapour had moved beyond the plant boundaries. It was
later upgraded to a Code 6, prompting police to initiate traffic control on
vehicles southbound on Highway 40 and the St. Clair Parkway.
The
"all clear" sounded at 9:45 p.m., about four hours after the
incident began.
Rather
than evacuate residents, Brown said, "We felt it safer to have them stay
inside."
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timely information; however, inadvertent or factual inaccuracies and
typographical errors are possible. : http://www.observer-sarnia.com/
*****************
I suppose
this is just another example of "Doing Great Things"!
Steve Tvedten
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