Hazards surveys

To chanicterize potential disasters by tjpe and extent, a survey of hazards or foreseeable tlireats in die community must be performed and evaluated. Widiout such information, an appropriate plan cannot be developed. An inventory of the community protection assets, liazard sources, and risks must be done before die actual plan is written. The procedures followed here is similar to diat provided in Part IV of this book - Hazard Risk Assessment. 

Although a plan for a city dii ided by a river may not be applicable to a desert city on a seismic fault, duplication can be an enemy of cost efficiency. Thus wherever possible, any emergency plans diat already exist in die community should be used as a starting point. Coinmunity groups diat may have developed such plans include civil defense organizadons, fire departments, die Red Cross, public health agencies, and local industry councils. Existing plans should be studied and their applicability to the proposed community plan evaluated. 

Local government departments such as transportadon, water, power, and sewer, may have valuable resources. These should be listed and dien compared to die needs of the pUui. Some examples are provided below. 

The potential sources of hazards should be listed for risk assessment. SARA requires certain industries to provide information to the planning committee. Information about snuill as well as large industries is necessary to perinit the committee to evaluate tlie significant risks. Tlie information required by SARA (some of which was provided in Cliapter 2) includes  

The type of chemical hazmd (e.g., toxic, fliuvmiable, ignitable, corrosive) 

---

The risk inventory or risk evaluation is die ne. t part of die hazard survey. It is not practical to expect the plan to cover every potential accident. When die hazards liave been evaluated, die plan should be focused on die most significant ones. This risk assessment stage requires die technical expertise of many people to compare die pieces of data and detennine die relevance of each. Among die important factors to be considered in performing die risk evaluation are die following ... 

Hazard Survey of the Chemical and Allied Industries . American Insurance Association, New York City. 1979,... 

NIOSH. 1977j. National occupational hazard survey. Vol. Ill Survey analysis and supplemental tables. Cincinnati, OH U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies. DHEW (NIOSH) Publication No. 78-114, 346. 

Hazards surveys This can be as simple as an inventory of hazardous materials, or it can be as detailed as the Dow indexes. The Dow indexes are a formal rating system, much like an income tax form, that provide penalties for hazards and credits for safety equipment and procedures. 

A hazards survey can be as simple as an inventory of hazardous materials in a facility or as complicated as a rigorous procedure such as the Dow Fire and Explosion Index (F EI)2 and the... 

Dow-Chemical Exposure Index (CEI)3, which are two popular forms of hazards survey. These are formal systematized approaches using a rating form, similar to an income tax form. The final rating number provides a relative ranking of the hazard. The F EI also contains a mechanism for estimating the dollar loss in the event of an accident. 

The first step in the procedure is to conceptually divide the process into separate process units. A process unit is a single pump, a reactor, or a storage tank. A large process results in hundreds of individual units. It is not practical to apply the fire and explosion index to all these units. The usual approach is to select only the units that experience shows to have the highest likelihood of a hazard. A process safety checklist or hazards survey is frequently used to select the most hazardous units for further analysis. 

Hazards surveys are suitable for identifying hazards associated with equipment design, layout, material storage, and so forth. They are not suitable for identifying hazards resulting from improper operation or upset conditions. On the other hand, this approach is fairly rigorous, requires little experience, is easy to apply, and provides a quick result. 

SieberWK, Sundin DS, Frazier TM, et al. 1991. Development, use, and availability of a job exposure matrix based on national occupational hazard survey data. Amer J Ind Med 20 163-174. 

Although several computerized tools13 and literature resources are available to identify reactive hazards, surveyed companies do not generally use them. In some cases, these tools provide an efficient means of identifying reactive hazards without the need for chemical testing. 

Occupational exposure to endrin was not evaluated during the National Occupational Exposure Survey (NOES) conducted from 1981 to 1983 or its predecessor, the National Occupational Hazard Survey (NOHS) conducted from 1972 to 1974. The surveys conducted by NIOSH were designed to provide data necessary to describe potential exposure agents and profile health and safety programs in United States... 

NOHS. 1989. National Occupational Hazard Survey. National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, OH. October 18, 1989. 

---