Responding to an emergency

On-Site Emergency Responder 29 CFR 1910.120 (q) or state mandate Personnel from outside DOE site who respond to an emergency on the DOE site. Includes local fire fighters. HAZMAT teams, etc. Practice and drills as necessary. 

What precautions (e.g., domiing personal protective equipment) are to be taken when responding to an emergency ... 

Sometimes, even in this electronic age , paper is still the medium of choice. For retained records that must be made available to personnel responding to an emergency, paper is a better medium than electronic media, because paper can remain accessible during emergency events (e.g., power outages, fires, floods, etc.) that could render electronic records inaccessible. 

On-site population includes not only employees (with specific training for the emergency response team), but also contractors and visitors. Every person who enters a facility should be trained in how to respond to an emergency. In most cases, this involves a simple orientation process to familiarize everyone with the basic hazards that exist at the facility, general emergency recognition, and the facility s responses to alarms. Personnel who work closely with the process and may be instrumental in its control will certainly receive more training as their roles necessitate. 

All personnel working within a facility should always be trained to recognize and respond to an emergency, including instruction in how to notify appropriate plant officials and what actions to take in case an evacuation is required (29 C.F.R. sec. 1910.38), (CCPS, 1995). 

An emergency response plan should be developed in order to delineate how a facility responds to an emergency. The first aspect of the plan is an inventory of the chemical, physical, and biological hazards associated with the facility. The list could include the storage, use, or transportation of hazardous materials, hazardous wastes, and hazardous substances. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration... 

Waste shipments are to be managed in accordance with DOT regulations for appropriate state and local emergency response actions.... The CMA facility needs to work in concert with the receiving TSDF and the waste shipper to ensure that there are adequate response capabihties to respond to an emergency in route. 7... 

Finally, the 1999 NRC report expressed skepticism about the reorganization s impact on improving the capacity for responding to an emergency. 

The user must be able to locate the appropriate EOP to respond to an emergency situation easily and quickly. Users should not be forced to look through procedures or procedure manuals to find the proper response. This would require them to remember which procedure contains the appropriate EOP and where in the procedure or manual the EOP is located. 

DOE O 151.1A,Chapter III, sec. 3.c(l) 29CFR1910.120(q)(3)(i) 4.3.2 The senior emergeney response oifieial responding to an emergency shall beeome the Ineident Commander (IC). All emergency responders and their eommunications shall be eoordinated and controlled through the IC assisted by the senior official present or by each employer. 

Social influences (how do other people act, how do other people feel about the warning system that I used), stress and many more issues have an influence on how an individual will respond to an emergency. 

The best time is to prepare to respond to an emergency is before it happens. That s where OSHA s Emergency Action Plan (EAP) Standard, 29 CFR 1926.35, comes into play. The regulation requires an EAP if your site falls rmder another OSHA standard that requires an EAP. These OSHA standards include ... 

CFR 1910 Subpart H (1910.120), Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (known as HAZWOPER). This regulation requires that anyone who responds to an emergency involving hazardous waste receive training and demonstrate competence in emergency response operations. 

A description of the response organization, authorities, responsibilities, and relationship with the SRS Technical Support Center (TSC) mergency Operations Facility (EOF) established for responding to an emergency situation that may arise... 

Exception 1 An employer need not train all employees to the degree specified if the employer divides the work force in a manner such that a sufficient number of employees who have responsibility to control emergencies have the training specified, and all other employees, who may first respond to an emergency incident, have sufficient awareness training to recognize that an emergency response situation exists and that they are instructed in that case to summon the fully trained employees and not attempt control activities for which they are not trained. 

In an industrial environment, responding to an emergency is done according to a specific set of standards. Emergency response drills are carefully planned and include preparations for worst-case scenarios for example, vapor releases, chemical spills, explosions, fires, equipment failure, hurricane, high winds, loss of power, and bomb threats or actual bombings. 

CFR I9l0.120(q)(3)(i) The senior emergency respoinse official responding to an emergency did not become the individual in charge of a site specific Incident Command System (ICS) and/or coordinate and control... 

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