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.
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.
Facilities that can withstand a flood with MTTH of 500. Practically nothing more can be done by facilities itself. However, if there were a better guide line, police officers would not have to be driven through highways that could have a potentially dangerous exposure to chemicals. Not to mention that crews of facilities could have decided that this is not a flood that can be averted and made earlier controlled abandoning and evacuation so that chemicals would burn in pre-controlled manner without an excessive effort to fight nature back, and allow, locals to evacuate in less disturbing manner. Attempting to fight the flood risk beyond the 500-year flood is unrealistic. However, attempting to minimize the loss in case of extreme is practical. So well, this facility kind of overreacted to flood. Moving those chemicals hand by hand during massive flood is heroic, but it wouldn't make situations safer in general. This could be a rare case where usually-meticulous-action is not being the best possible option. Anyway, impact of incident is still well minimized thanks to extensive effort to keep facility reasonably a flood proofed. When insurance company says "very flood proofed".... they says it with a lot of serious calculations.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
What about making floating warehouses? So all refer and back up generator equipment is on on giant barge? Stoping it from being washed away would be the hard part.
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.
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.
Through the hard work of their dedicated employees, effective leadership, and good communication with first responders, Arkema probably saved lives. Good job.
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.
Stellar quality production. Management & the workers at Arkema should receive recognition for all the planning, preparation & execution in extreme conditions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@KevinNerfs yep, and it is the fact that they did all they possibly could have done, even going above and beyond what most people would have done, that likely prevented this from being far worse.
@@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.
Man I gotta hand it to those workers, they were seriously dedicated and nobody can say that they didn't at least put in the effort to try to prevent it from happening.. And the company even handled it well by telling them to evacuate and giving first responders a heads-up before it happened
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kudos to the company and crew in this case their advanced planning bought every one time to get out of the way if the situation was unavoidable like this case.
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
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.
Interesting how it seems like the company did pretty much everything they could have done in the situation, which is pretty rare for these videos.
2000 containers by hand at night. respect.
MinecraftMike thats some dedication right there.I would like to meat those people
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).
That's because companies which take the proper safety measures usually don't have accidents. Situations like this one are by definition extraordinary.
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.
Those are some dedicated workers they had there, moving two thousands containers by hand, in floodwater, now that's impressive.
And at night even!
I agree
Philip Balfour Badasses for sure
If you’ve ever been in a hurricane, you’ll know how crazy that was! 2,000 of them?! Give them a raise
Hazard pay must be a thing
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.
thats what i thought. I dont think they could've done anything more
Facilities that can withstand a flood with MTTH of 500. Practically nothing more can be done by facilities itself.
However, if there were a better guide line, police officers would not have to be driven through highways that could have a potentially dangerous exposure to chemicals.
Not to mention that crews of facilities could have decided that this is not a flood that can be averted and made earlier controlled abandoning and evacuation so that chemicals would burn in pre-controlled manner without an excessive effort to fight nature back, and allow, locals to evacuate in less disturbing manner.
Attempting to fight the flood risk beyond the 500-year flood is unrealistic. However, attempting to minimize the loss in case of extreme is practical.
So well, this facility kind of overreacted to flood. Moving those chemicals hand by hand during massive flood is heroic, but it wouldn't make situations safer in general.
This could be a rare case where usually-meticulous-action is not being the best possible option.
Anyway, impact of incident is still well minimized thanks to extensive effort to keep facility reasonably a flood proofed. When insurance company says "very flood proofed".... they says it with a lot of serious calculations.
That hurricane crew at Arkema deserve medals for above and beyond. They did all they could. Another excellent video from USCSB.
Chuckxjarhed FUCK yessssss
Or at least buy them a beer.
employee of the month plaques for the lot of the them
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!
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.
Calyo Delphi TRUE NIGGA
@@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.
Cool to see a company actually doing things mostly right instead of the gross oversights you often see in the other videos
Cough cough BP texaco and union carbide/dough chemical
That's because companies that do the right thing don't make the news.
Or that one company that ordered security to withhold info from 911....
@@Silversmok3 Ah, which one was that, the Bayer facility?
Colin Campbell correct, you “only” hear the bad stuff fr9m the news
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.
MusicBent that no one would thought would happen there
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.
They had no choice, they evacuated and left the chemicals to burn that's a heavy price to pay for lives lost.
@@haruhisuzumiya6650 did you watch the video? Literally no one died and only emergency responders were exposed to chemicals
It sounds like Arkema did everything they could to minimize this accident. No business can be made hurricane proof.
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, time to get ready for school little Timmy.
If every plant were built to survive like these bunkers you talk of we wouldn't be able to build or afford anything.
@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.
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!
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.
Point Curation
Well said. 👍🙌
I'm Irish American and I totally call the USCSB one of the best educational groups ever
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'
The NTSB sure doesn't get the recognition it deserves for some if the tragic and horrible situations they have to investigate.
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.
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 i agree then animations really do help show what happened in detail
Contingence ookkkk
Rahan Khan -- Pretending that I'm awkward because you don't know or care about this kind of shit just makes both of us look dumb.
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.
Its unbiased from an objective analytical committee. Way better than news.
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.
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.
Kind of find it funny considering the Police were determined by the CSB to have not closed the highway when they should've.
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.
Sounds like Arkema did everything they could to prevent this disaster and that there were some real heroes working that night.
Absolutely. Respect to the workers, AND their company.
Yep, they tried their best but the weather was uncooperative.
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.
Once again the narration is incredibly good :)
Huge kudos to the ride-out crew for doing their absolute best in this extreme weather situation.
TubeofDestiny: ABSOLUTELY!!! The "RIDE-OUT CREW" are warriors.
Yep they did everything they could, 10/10 effort to them guys
They deserve a big bonus bro
I can imagine, after all that work they put in, how bitter it must have felt to control burn the remaining trucks
Somebody could make a good movie about this. Call it "The Ride-out Crew".
They'd probably glitz it up and put The Rock and Vin Diesel in it, though.
It seems like the only other thing they could have done is get refrigeration boat(s). Glad to hear no one was fatally injured from this.
Or just make one warehouse a barge with generators and fuel storage all on board anchored with piers to keep it from floating away.
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).
riakata said, "make one warehouse a barge..." EXCELLENT idea. Too bad they did not hire you to write their flood response plan.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
burdizdawurd1516 they know how to make great animations
Animations keep getting better, props to them!
Ventus The Sox true dat
How’s the soundtrack though
UwU
@@main1411 UwU
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!
It's nice to actually see people do their jobs in one of these videos.
They did quite well. I can't imagine any measure that could have helped, shy of a careened boat waiting for this exact scenario.
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.
What about making floating warehouses? So all refer and back up generator equipment is on on giant barge? Stoping it from being washed away would be the hard part.
@@andrewyork3869 That's kind of a neat idea
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.
They didn't even think to raise the air intake on the truck.
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.
no matter how much these guys get paid it is less than they deserve
True
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.
Through the hard work of their dedicated employees, effective leadership, and good communication with first responders, Arkema probably saved lives. Good job.
You do everything you can and do it VERY well, but sometimes.................
Lewie McNeely ballverr
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.
...it just isn't enough.
Stellar quality production.
Management & the workers at Arkema should receive recognition for all the planning, preparation & execution in extreme conditions.
Moved by hand the chemicals at night in flood waters! those guys are nuts
No, they are heros. Even if in the end it was all for nothing.
You say hero, but as a PSM professional, I say they acted unsafely. Thus nuts
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.
@@patton9696 good thing you were not in this situation. Pussy.
@@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.
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.
These CSB mini-documentaries of “lessons learned” are more interesting than many movies 🎥 🍿 coming out of Hollywood these days! 😃👍
Major props to the dedication to the ride out crew. They worked hard to keep everything safe. They did everything they could.
I watched this video a second time just to admire the mind blowing level of detail in the animations.
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.
Tons of material _that becomes dangerously unstable if it warms above freezing,_ no less. _By hand,_ when necessary. That is some amazing dedication.
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.
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.
This ride out squad should be given some type of award for heroic acts. The handel that situation, and never run. My hats off to them.
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.
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.
The team at Arkema that conducted the over night moving of the material to higher grounds are heroes in my book. Golden hearts.
Ohhh these are my favorite. Who knew industrial saftey reenactments could be so entertaining!
Harbours often have electrical equipment on raised platforms. That may be in idea to prevent flooding of generators or switch gear.
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.
I'm always glad to see another USCSB video. I wish the nuclear industry had some safety videos as good as you.
maby you like this one ruclips.net/video/vcsyMvQtlKs/видео.html
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.
They went above and beyond. I hope every company is this dedicated. They’re an example of how to do it right.
CSB videos are legit my favorite series on any site. I love you guys.
This channel is incredible. Can't believe this is a real safety agency, and not some dude making this videos. The beat at the end was sick! Nice
Impressed by the actions taken bily the workers. Did everything they could under horrible conditions. Kudos. Also, amazing animations fantastic work.
Insane quality of animating, and great learning moment!
great video. seems like these guys did everything they possibly could to prevent a disaster, respect to them.
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.
Another great video by USCSB! I love the information and the animation!
These videos are awesome. This team of employees is amazing
I work at Formosa here in Texas. They bring loads to us daily and haven't recovered yet.
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.
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!
Props to ride out crew for their dedication and determination. They did everything they could in conditions that no one was prepared for.
Damn that is some hardcore dedication from the crew-props to them
You can’t plan for 50 inches of rain over a few days. It’s refreshing to hear a story about a company trying to do the correct thing.
5:12 Wait...they carried potentially explosive peroxides by hand?? Peroxides that would catch fire if they got too warm out of refrigeration?!
Ballsy
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.
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.
Thank You guys up at the csb my dad drives truck and yall keep him and the wold safe from chemicals
AJ Nadow ll
AJ Nadow
@@somyacomedyvideomastichann6171yes
Arkema, did everything they could. The ride out crew went above and beyond, what any employer would expect, well done guys, you deserve recognition.
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.
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.
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.
@@KevinNerfs yep, and it is the fact that they did all they possibly could have done, even going above and beyond what most people would have done, that likely prevented this from being far worse.
The animation, textures and models in these videos are so good.
*ARKEMA DID NOTHING WRONG*
5 LIGHTS!
Yup, they did all they could. Sometimes, you can't just beat Nature...
@@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.
@4shacks1house "Climate change loon" now thats funny. a bit sad after the initial laughter. Our public schools are such a failure.
@@Mybored001 There are FOUR lights...!
Great learning videos. Great job by Archema in addressing the real life events and staying ahead of events to achieve safe decomposition.
Loving the rattling trap hi-hats in this video's music. I joke, but what you all do is greatly important and as always very interesting.
Zaphod Beeblebrox I assume you mean like 1:52? Lol
Props to those workers damn. Well done also props to the company for having such a great safety fail safe and a+++++ workers.
5:12 This is entirely dedication and commitment to safety I love it
Man I gotta hand it to those workers, they were seriously dedicated and nobody can say that they didn't at least put in the effort to try to prevent it from happening.. And the company even handled it well by telling them to evacuate and giving first responders a heads-up before it happened
The dedication of those workers... wow
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.
This is my new favorite RUclips channel
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.
Can't believe a chemical disaster channel would have a notification squad but ayyyyy here I am
Wolfboy101 I need my engineer failure autism dosage
Get the fuck out of here kid
@@AbelG8781 why should he?
@@Juan-ng7rs notification squad???? Kiddish nonsense
Those workers were incredible. They did everything they could. It seems like almost everything in this situation was handled to the best ability!
I nominate them for a bonus!
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.
The quality of these animations is incredible
That’s some dedicated ride out crew. They must be very committed to there job.
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 love these videos. The details in the animation is fascinating and the narrator’s voice is perfect for videos like these. 👍
Well high regard to the workers. They did an amazing job. Sorry about the responders exposed to the chemical. As always a top job done on this video
Damn, these guys really did everything, like absolutely everything they could have done. That's rare in these videos!
Kudos to the company and crew in this case their advanced planning bought every one time to get out of the way if the situation was unavoidable like this case.
Those guys who moved dangerous chemicals by hand, at night, in the middle of a hurricane are braver than all the troops.
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
As a NileRed viewer I was like ohh damn organic peroxides sheeit
I honestly count this as a win and a great learning experience.
The Ride Out Crew were awesome and should get a medal! When God wants organic peroxide to burn, it's going to burn.
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.
This video is the epitome of “shit happens”
These are so well made, thank you for the hard work!
USCSB is the best to prevent accidents.
hats off to the ride out crew for moving the remain material by hand
This was a nice one. Those workers went above and beyond.