AIKEN - Plans to reconstruct the Graniteville disaster with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to generate a guide for other emergency agencies have fallen through, officials said last week.
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With the federal security agency out of the picture, Aiken County Sheriff Mike Hunt, who coordinated the weeks-long process of stabilizing and cleaning up the Jan. 6 train collision and chlorine spill, said he is looking elsewhere for help.
He's asked emergency personnel with the Department of Energy at Savannah River Site to help review events surrounding the disaster, and is seeking outside help because more than 100 agencies from South Carolina, Georgia and elsewhere participated.
"It's not as simple as it sounds," Sheriff Hunt said. "It's funding. The department does not stop just because we had a major incident in Graniteville, S.C."
Emergency response agencies routinely issue "lessons learned" reports after handling major incidents. Such tragedies often produce improved ways to make people safe should something similar happen somewhere else.
Homeland Security even has a nationwide database designed specifically to let emergency agencies read and learn about disaster lessons.
But with the Graniteville incident more than two months in the past, at least one hazardous materials expert has grown antsy waiting for a report on what was done right and wrong during the response.
Fred Millar has studied disasters involving hazardous materials for decades and says the most insightful and accurate lessons need to be recorded soon after the incidents occur.
"It's very useful to get people when they're first puzzling over their own lessons learned," said Mr. Millar, who served 13 years on the District of Columbia Local Emergency Planning Committee. "You want people with fresh memories. You don't want things to get put in some mythologized past."
Mike Cyphers has his own point of view on disaster lessons. He arrived at Henderson City, Nev., soon after an explosion at the Pepcon rocket fuel plant killed two and injured more than 350 in 1988.
Now the emergency management coordinator for that city, he watched as several studies of the event were commissioned and the company was asked to make millions of dollars' worth of safety upgrades.
"They really reacted," Mr. Cyphers said. "Looking back, some of it was probably overreaction."
He was working for the city three years later when a leak at the Pioneer Chlor-Alkali plant let 42 tons of chlorine seep into the community, forcing more than 3,000 people to evacuate their homes.
The city made changes after the event, such as tying the company's alarm into the city's 911 system. But officials there had an advantage over emergency personnel who responded to the Graniteville incident, which claimed nine lives, injured hundreds and forced the evacuation of an estimated 5,400.
Henderson City responders knew they were dealing with chlorine.
"Graniteville was the worst of all circumstances," Mr. Cyphers said. "It's a tough one to learn from."
Sheriff Hunt and other local emergency personnel say they're satisfied with how they handled the situation.
"We think, overall, our plan worked," the sheriff said.
Though, he added, "there's always something that after the fact you can decide to do a little better."
The sheriff said he and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart discussed the need for coroners to have protective clothing in case of a hazardous material spill.
And Aiken County's Emergency Services Director Rick Powell noted the absence of formal mutual aid agreements between some South Carolina agencies and their Georgia counterparts, though several agencies from the Peach State helped handle the Graniteville incident.
Given the size and proportion of what happened in the town, Mr. Powell says a federal agency needs to gather all the lessons so they can be made available nationwide.
"This is the biggest emergency, in my opinion, that has been suffered in the U.S. since the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," he said.
Mr. Millar, the hazardous materials expert, agrees the information is important. Because what happened in Graniteville was so devastating and could happen anywhere, he said, the lessons need to be posted sooner rather than later.
In general, there are no fixed criteria for reviewing disasters and discovering what could be done better, said Gary Tokle, an assistant vice president with the National Fire Protection Association.
Though such self-audits are routine, they differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and can take longer depending on the size of the disaster.
"With something of that magnitude, my guess is there's something to be learned," he said.
Reach Josh Gelinas at (803) 648-1395, ext. 113, or josh.gelinas@augustachronicle.com.
WHAT'S NEXT
Aiken County Sheriff Mike Hunt said local agencies hope to compile lessons from the Graniteville disaster in coming weeks and issue a formal report within months.
Special Section: Graniteville Train Wreck
On January 6, 2005, a Norfolk Southern Corp. freight train carrying chemicals hit a parked train near an Avondale Mills plant in Graniteville, South Carolina. The impact caused poisonous chlorine gas to leak from three of the moving train's cars. Nine people were killed and more than 5,000 people were evacuated from the site.
For complete coverage of the Graniteville train wreck, visit our special section.
