Furr, A. Keith Ph.D. "EMERGENCIES" CRC Handbook of Laboratory Safety Edited by A. Keith Furr, Ph.D. Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC,2000 ©2000 CRC Press LLC Chapter 2 EMERGENCIES Emergencies are, by definition, not planned. However, planning for emergencies can not only be done, but is an essential component of laboratory safety. This is especially true for the laboratory environment where the potential for incidents is much higher than in many other working situations. There are many regulatory standards that now require that organizations using chemicals in laboratories and elsewhere, or that produce chemical waste, have formal emergency plans. These plans must cover emergency evacuation and response procedures, emergency equipment to be kept on hand, security, training of personnel handling hazardous chemicals, reference materials, identification of emergency personnel, and access to external resources, including aid agreements with local emergency organizations. For example, every facility with laboratories that come under the OSHA laboratory standard must meet this obligation under Title 29 Part 1910.1450. This includes even relatively small organizations. In addition, OSHA Industry General Standards under 1910.38, 120, and 1200 also provide for emer- gency planning. The OSHA Bloodborne Pathogen Standard (29 CFR 1910.1030) has provisions for emergency actions in case of an accidental exposure. The RCRA Act considers all organizations that generate more than 100 kg of hazardous waste per month as large generators. Title 40 CFR Part 265.16 and Parts 311 and 355 defines the emergency requirements of RCRA. The Americans With Disabilities Act, Titles II and III, 28 CFR, impacts accessibility for disabled individuals. Each of the regulatory acts will be discussed in more detail in later chapters. However, these regulations simply provide the specifics for a legal mandate to do what every organization handling hazardous material should do anyway. A realistic appraisal of the circumstances that can lead to emergencies in a laboratory will reveal many foreseeable and controllable problems. Some problems that can be expected to occur might include: ! Fires ! Chemical spills ! Generation of toxic fumes and vapors ! Inhalation, ingestion, or absorption of toxic materials ! Release of compressed toxic, anesth etic, explosive, asphyxiating, and corrosive gases locally or beyond the boundaries of a facility ! Release of radioactive materials ! Release of pathogens and restricted biological materials ! Power failure, involving loss of lights or ventilation ! Electrical shocks ! Explosions, or runaway reactions ! Failure of a facility exhaust system ©2000 CRC Press LLC ! Physical injuries to individuals ! Consequences of natural disasters ! A combination of any of these simultaneously This list is not intended to be complete. Some events are more likely to create immediate and pressing problems than others. It is impossible to anticipate all classes of problems that can occur. Some events are recognized as emergencies more readily while others may not be identified for extended periods of time. Some involve the threat of personal injury, while others impact the environment with little likelihood of immediate injurious effects to individuals. Emergency personnel often mention that many emergencies in which they have been involved were not anticipated and would have been unlikely to have been considered, even by the most careful planning. There is no limit to the variations that human ingenuity and the vagaries of fate can take to modify the factors that control our lives. The inability to foresee all possible emergencies should not inhibit the development of plans to cope with those that can be anticipated, or to provide a basic emergency response infra-structure that can be used, even for unanticipated types of emergencies. The scope of this chapter will be to examine the general principles of emergency pre- paredness to serve as a guide for preparation of individual, specific action plans, and to provide some useful information to be used in various classes of emergencies. Planning and preparation are necessary to help in identifying and finding the resources needed to support a flexible, effective, and, if needed, rapid response to laboratory emergencies. Injuries, prop-erty and environmental damage can be limited if effective emergency procedures already exist and are practiced regularly. Practice is essential to expose deficiencies in the procedures and to familiarize personnel involved with them. Plans that are developed and then filed away are worse than useless. They can provide a false sense of security. In a real emergency, it is essential to know immediately what to do or, often, what not to do. Time to read a manual is often not likely to be available. Before developing the theme suggested in the preceding paragraph, there are some caveats that need to be introduced that are applicable to the contents of this entire chapter. There are advantages in not overreacting. It is easy for well-meaning and knowledgeable individuals to turn a relatively minor event into a major and expensive incident by acting too quickly, without full awareness of the total situation and without consulting other persons involved. No serious worsening of a situation might result in doing absolutely nothing until the situation has been discussed, evaluated, and a plan of action developed. Evacuation, containment, and exclusion of nonessential personnel are the appropriate initial actions in almost every emergency. Unless a situation is clearly deteriorating and shows signs of becoming out of control, a review of the situation and an examination of the response options by emergency and operational personnel is usually desirable. However, this decision is best left to the responsible personnel on the scene. One other note of caution: no one is expected in the normal course of their work to go to extreme measures, risking their own lives, to cope with an emergency when the risk is certain to be very great. The more responsible action often is to leave the scene when the situation is obviously beyond an individual’s capabilities. Doing so makes it possible for emergency response groups to have a competent source of information about the situation when they arrive. It is difficult to do when lives are involved, instead of only property, but there is no point in adding to the loss when the situation is clearly hopeless. It is a judgment call again that can only be made at the time by persons present. Despite the two cautionary paragraphs immediately preceding, there are steps that in- dividuals and local groups can and should take, when appropriate, to confine and minimize the impact of emergencies. The first few moments of an emergency are frequently the ones that are the most crucial. Actions should be based on training, knowledge, and a due regard for priorities. Protection of life and health should come before protection of property, or reputation, especially the latter. Unfortunately, many persons do not seek help or take inappropriate actions until too late for fear of being blamed for a problem, often allowing the situation to worsen until out of control. Trained and knowledgeable personnel are less likely to make these mistakes. ©2000 CRC Press LLC A. Components of Emergency Preparedness Emergency preparedness is the responsibility of everyone. Many persons consider this the job of such organizations as fire departments, police departments and rescue squads and do not consider themselves as part of the emergency response. This is not true. Everyone has a role to play and it is the responsibility of emergency planners to define these roles and prepare individuals to carry out their personal responsibilities, even if, in some cases these are limited to alerting others of the problems, evacuating the area and making sure trained groups are notified promptly. 1. Initial Conditions Basic conditions should exist to ease meeting emergency responsibilities. Some of these conditions should be met before a building is constructed. For example, in the initial planning, the building should have been designed to incorporate safety codes and regulations by the architects, in cooperation with the persons responsible for the programs to be housed in the building. Codes represent minimum requirements which the builder’s owners should feel no hesitation in exceeding if it appears needed. Appropriate fixed and movable equipment must be installed or provided, consistent with the concept of a facility that could be operated safely. Code mandated emergency equipment must be available, but decisions must be made about what design features and equipment should be mandatory, what is desirable, and what would be a luxury. Once these decisions are made, leaning, it is hoped, toward the side of enhanced safety, then personnel responsibilities should be considered next. It is necessary to define the role of each person in a facility and to specifically designate which individuals and groups should have the leadership responsibility for emergency planning and emergency response. It is critical that it not be necessary to develop an impromptu plan or seek one buried in a file cabinet. The emergency plan fo r a given facility should be a subset of a plan for the entire organization. The infrastructure and planning available to the entire organization can be adapted to the needs of individual needs and individual laboratories. Decisions must be made as to who is responsible for providing emergency response equipment and supplies, and obviously with this decision, the need arises to decide the source of funds. A major decision is to define the type of command structure that will be used and who will be involved. A clearly defined line of authority is needed. The responsibilities of the key individuals and groups must be delineated and boundaries established between local responsibility, institutional responsibility, and outside emergency response agencies. Finally, based on all of the applicable factors, each individual facility can establish a written emergency response plan for itself with specified responses to anticipated classes of emergencies specific to that facility. The organizational plans as well as the plans for smaller units all must be sufficiently flexible to provide responses to unanticipated emergencies. The following material will elaborate on these points. 2. Facilities, Fixed, and Movable Equipment Where buildings and facilities already exist prior to developing an emergency plan, it is necessary, of course, to adapt the plan to the existing structure, but if the opportunity arises, there is much that can be done to reduce the severity of later emergencies when designing, building, and equipping a facility. Once built, it is expensive to modify a facility but incorporat- ing safety features in a newly built structure can save substantial costs. For example, renovating existing structures to make them earthquake resistant, unnecessary in many areas while very important in others, is very expensive, but it is possible to do it at much less cost for new buildings where needed. In order to facilitate the design and construction of safe buildings, fire and building codes have been established in most localities that govern new construction and renovations to existing buildings. Generally, under these codes, research laboratories come under the classification of a business use occupancy or occasionally as a hazardous use occu- pancy where unusually hazardous activities are involved, each of which incorporates different safety requirements. OSHA also has standards in the area of fire safety, as well as ventilation, * About 25 states have adopted their own state OSHA plans which are required to be as stringent as the federal standards; however, public employees in some of these states may not be covered by the OSHA standards. ©2000 CRC Press LLC which must be met. OSHA standards, where applicable 1 , are consistent in every state, but building codes vary from locality to locality, often depending upon interpretations of a local code official. The requirements for access for the disabled under the ADA clearly affect emergency movements. As a result, fire alarms now require intense strobe lighting devices as well as audible signals. Braille instructions may be required for the blind in parts of a facility. Special chairs may have to be provided for the physically disabled. Places of refuge to which disabled persons can go while awaiting help must be identified. For several other types of risk, special regulations, such as the classification system for recombinant DNA research facilities, also have safety restrictions that must be included in the building design. This latter set of safety restrictions will be reserved to later chapters dealing with these special topics. Concerns which should be addressed in the designs of laboratory buildings to enhance emergency responses depend upon the classification. For example, if the building is a hazardous use occupancy, most codes will require a sprinkler or other fire suppression systems. If a sprinkler or alarm system is required by a local fire code, then OSHA 1910.37(m&n) requires maintenance and testing. Also for this classification, OSHA will require under 1910.37(f)(2) that the doors swing in the direction of exit travel, yet most building codes have restrictions on doors swinging into corridors to avoid creating obstructions to corridor traffic. In order to satisfy both requirements, doors should be recessed into alcoves inside the laboratory. Even existing facilities may have to be upgraded to meet some code standards. The size of a building, the number of floors, and the relationship to other structures all enter code decisions affecting safety in emergencies. Addition of equipment to a laboratory, such as a hood, can have serious fire safety implications. Is there adequate makeup air? If not, where can it be obtained? Halls cannot not be used as a plenum or as a supply of makeup air for more than a few hundred ft 3 per minute (cfm) for each laboratory space. Even a small, 4-foot fume hood discharges about 800 cfm, so that one cannot draw the required makeup air in through louvers in the door. Usually, one must go outside for a source of makeup air, but what is the relation of this new inlet air intake to the exhaust system? Toxic fumes could be drawn back into a building. A fume exhaust duct penetrating a floor could allow a fire to spread from one floor to another. Therefore, most codes require fume hood ducts to be enclosed in a fire-rated chase. Because of the expense of constructing a chase, the cost of avoiding worsening the fire separation in a building could preclude installation of the hood, which in turn could preclude using the space for the intended research. One option, to allow future flexibility, is to incorporate external chases as an architectural feature in the design. Energy loss considerations can impact the design of a laboratory. Auxiliary air hoods have been used in the past to reduce the amount of tempered air being “wasted,” but there are a number of reasons why this type of hood is less desirable and they are seldom used any more in new construction. In fact, most laboratory designers explicitly prohibit the use of auxiliary air hoods. An alternative is to design a ventilation system for a laboratory to maintain a constant volume of air through a hood while in use, and provide some means of reducing the ventilation requirements for a facility when the hood is not being used. Ventilation will be discussed in much more detail in Chapter III. The interior arrangements of a laboratory are critical in permitting safe evacuation from the laboratory. The types of accidents listed earlier could pose much more serious risks to individuals should they occur between an individual and the exit from the room. A simple solution for these potential emergencies for larger laboratories is to have two well-separated exits. This is not always possible, especially in smaller laboratories. An alternative would be to evaluate what components of a laboratory are most likely to be involved in an incident and which would increase the hazard if they became involved in an ongoing emergency. These components should be located so that an escape route from the normal work area does not pass by them. Also, portable fire extinguishers, fire blankets, respirators, and other emergency equipment should be located on this same escape route. Eyewash stations and deluge showers ©2000 CRC Press LLC should be located close to where injuries are likely to occur, so an individual will not have to move substantial distances while in intense pain or blinded. Aisles should be wide (typically a minimum of 42 to 48 inches), straight, and uncluttered with excess equipment to ease movement in emergencies. A laboratory should have emergency lighting, but many do not. The considerable dangers posed to an individual stumbling around in a pitch dark laboratory should the power fail are obvious. Inexpensive, battery-powered rechargeable units are a potential solution here and are not expensive, even in retrofitting a facility. Many regulations found in OSHA standards include features that will minimize the scope and impact of an emergency such as a fire. For example, restrictions in 1910.106 on container sizes of flammable liquids and the amounts of these materials that are permitted to be stored outside flammable material storage cabinets are designed to limit the amount of fuel available to a fire and to extend the time before the material could become involved. Every action should be considered in terms of what would result if the worst happened. In large projects, this is often part of a formal hazard analysis, but this concept should be extended to virtually every decision within a laboratory. For example, a common piece of equipment found in most laboratories is a refrigerator. A refrigeration unit suitable for storing flammables, i.e., containing no internal sources of ignition, costs about two to three times as much as a similar unit designed for home use. It is tempting, especially if money is tight and the immediate need does not require storage of flammables, to save the difference. However, the average lifetime of a refrigeration unit is roughly 15 to 20 years. Who can say what materials research programs will entail over such a long period? If flammable vapors within an ordinary refrigerator should be ignited, a violent explosion is very likely to occur. Employees could be injured or killed and the laboratory, the building, and the product of years of research could be destroyed. Not only would there be immediate problems, but in most cases, replacing laboratory space would be very expensive, currently in the vicinity of $130 to $300 per square foot. Actual construction of replacement space for buildings as complex as most laboratories, from the time of planning to completion of construction, typically takes 4 years or more after the money is obtained. Many actions are influenced by the costs involved, as in the preceding example. A cont inuing question involves who should be responsible for paying for safety facilities and equipment. Under the OSHA laboratory standard, the adequacy of a facility to allow work to be done safely is a key condition. There are some straightforward guidelines that can be used: 1. For new construction, safety should be integrated into the building design and the choice of all fixed equipment. The latter should be incorporated in the building furniture and equipment package. This would include major items such as fume hoods, since these are relatively expensive units to retrofit. 2. Certain equipment and operational items common to the entire organization (e.g., fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, deluge showers, eyewash stations, and fire alarm systems) and maintenance of these items should be just as much an institutional responsibility as provision of utilities. 3. Items which are the result of operations unique to the individual laboratory or operations should be a local responsibility This would include equipment such as flammable material refrigeration units, flammable material storage cabinets (if these are not built in), and specialized safety equipment such as radiation monitors, gas monitors, etc. Some major items which might be included under fixed equipment in new construction might have to be provided by the individual if renovation of a space were to be involved. For example, it might be necessary to construct a shaft to enclose a fume hood duct and to provide a source of additional makeup air for the hood. The expense for personal protective equipment, such as goggles, face masks, respirators, and gloves, should also be provided at either the laboratory or departmental level. It is unlikely that any individual, whether it is the laboratory supervisor, safety professional, planner, or architect, will alone be sufficiently knowledgeable or have the requisite skills to make appropriate decisions for all of the factors discussed in this section. In addition, every one of these persons will have their own agenda. The inclusion of emergency preparedness features should be explicitly included as one of the charges to the building or project design committee ©2000 CRC Press LLC so that these needs can be integrated with function, efficiency, esthetics, and cost. It was not the intent at this point to elaborate on all the implications of codes as safety issues but, by a few examples, to draw attention to the idea that the root cause of an emergency and the potential for successfully dealing with it could well lie with decisions made years earlier. The point that was intended to be made was that laboratory safety and the capability to respond to emergencies does not start and end with teaching good laboratory technique and the adoption of an emergency response plan after beginning operations. B. Institutional or Corporate Emergency Committee In most organizations, there are many support groups that have been assigned specific responsibilities in dealing with emergencies which extend beyond those associated only with laboratories. Among these are safety, police or security, maintenance, communications, legal counsel, and media or public relations. Unlike the laboratory supervisor, departmental chair or individual laboratory employee who is primarily concerned with his research or administrative duties, these groups are directly concerned with one or more aspects of emergency response. In larger organizations, fire departments, physicians or medical services, or even more specialized groups may exist in-house. Each of these groups have their own expertise, their own dedicated resources, and their own contacts with outside agencies. Representatives from these agencies will be the ones normally called to the scene of an emergency and will be the ones expected to cope with the situation. This group should form the nucleus of the emergency planning committee but it should also include participation from the remainder of the organization. In the current context, this participation should include comprehensive coverage of the various areas of the corporate or institutional research programs. The committee should have direct access to upper levels of management, and it should also interact closely with safety committees associated with each broad research area, e.g., chemical, radiation, biosafety, and animal care. This committee also needs to coordinate its efforts with non-organizational support groups such as local, state, and federal police authorities, fire departments, rescue units, local emergency planning groups, environmental regulatory agencies such as EPA and local or regional water, air, and waste management agencies, and safety regulatory groups such as OSHA. Note that the emergency committee does not have the responsibility to manage the res ponse to an actual incident. The emergency committee, once formed and its charge clearly defined, should meet periodically (at least once a year and preferably more often) to review the status of the organization’s emergency preparedness, to plan for practice sessions, to review drills that have been conducted, and to investigate and review incidents that have occurred. Reports of these meetings, along with the findings, should be presented to management and to the individual safety committees. C. Emergency Plan The initial order of business for the emergency committee is to develop an emergency response plan (ERP). In developing the ERP, the committee should analyze the types of emergencies which could happen, their relative seriousness, and their relative probability of occurrence, in other words, perform an organizational hazard analysis. The emergencies to be considered should specifically include releases of hazardous and toxic chemicals to the environment, as required under SARA, Title III (Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986). Once the classes of emergencies have been defined, each should be analyzed as to the resources, equipment, training, and manpower which would be needed for an adequate response. An integral part of this analysis would be provisional plans for using these resources to respond to potential emergencies. The analysis should include both internal and external resources. Finally, a critical evaluation should be made of the current status of the institutional resources and a recommendation made to correct deficiencies. Based on the preliminary studies, the final plan should be drafted, circulated for review, amended if required , and implemented. The support of management is critical, or this effort would be wasted. ©2000 CRC Press LLC Figure 2.1 A sign such as this placed at each telephone is an effective way to inform people how to notify authorities. Plans should be developed which would be operative at differing levels. A basic plan should be short and easy to understand and to implement. The simple sign in Figure 2.1 above is ef- fective for most emergencies. The caller is expected to be guided by the person (usually a dispatcher) at the other end of the line for specific guidance for the appropriate response to the immediate problem. The major caveat is that the time to make such a call may not be available prior to evacuation for emergencies representing immediate and worsening emergency situations. Occupants of a facility should be trained to recognize when this condition exists and know how to initiate an evacuation of as large an area as necessary. 1. Laboratory Emergency Plan Workers in most laboratories normally are intelligent, knowledgeable individuals and can cope with many small emergencies such as a spill of a liter of sulfuric acid or a small fire if they have received appropriate emergency training. Such training is mandatory under the OSHA laboratory standard. A comprehensive laboratory emergency response plan is required under current standards for the risks associated with operations within the facility. The plan needs to include basic information such as risk recognition appropriate to the operations of the facility, means of internal responses to small to moderate emergencies, and evacuation training. All employees in the laboratory must receive instruction on these points at the time of beginning work in the facility, or when any new procedure or operation is introduced posing different risks. In order to identify potential risks, a detailed, thorough hazard analysis needs to have been done, based on the things that could go wrong, not just the risks associated with normal operations. Among information which must be included in the plan is where an employee can get not only the laboratory specific plan, but also the organization ’s overall plan. Another key ingredient of the plan is where safety and health information for the chemicals used in the laboratory, as represented by Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs), can be readily provided. A written emergency plan for an individual laboratory might, in outline, resemble the following: I. In bold letters, the basic number to call in the event of an emergency, perhaps 911or ©2000 CRC Press LLC possibly an internal number. II. A defined line of authority. This should provide the names and home and work telephone numbers of several individuals authorized to make decisions for the facility. They should be persons with direct knowledge of laboratory operations and, at least at the top of the list, persons who can make financial commitments. III. A list of external persons/groups, with telephone numbers, who can provide emer- gency assistance relevant to the risks associated with operations. Such a list should include at least the following: Emergency telephone number- 911, if available in the area University police or corporate security, if not available through the 911 number Local government police, if not available through 911 number Fire department number, if not available through 911 number Emergency medical care (rescue squad), if not available through 911 number Nearest Poison Control Center Nearest hospital Safety department Spill control group, if not available through 911 dispatcher or Safety Department Maintenance department number(s) Laboratory supervisor business and home telephone number Secondary laboratory authorities business and home telephone numbers Departmental or building authority number IV. A list of normally required safety procedures appropriate to laboratory operations. V. A simplified list of emergency actions to take for most likely emergencies. VI. Evacuation instructions, including a map of at least two alternative evacuation routes. The primary route should be identified and normally should be the shortest, most direct means of egress from the facility. A gathering area should be identified to which evacuees would normally go. This is important to allow a “head count” to ensure that everyone did successfully evacuate, and to provide a location where external agencies could come in order to receive information concerning the emergency. VII. Location of Material Safety Data Sheets and other safety and health reference materials. VIII. Location of the organization’s emergency plan. IX. Procedures for expanding the emergency response to additional areas of the building and organization when the emergency is a “large” one extending beyond the immediate area. The location of one or more telephones outside of the affected facility but readily accessible should be clearly identified. Two items need to be placed on or adjacent to the laboratory door to assist emergency responders when lab personnel are not immediately available during an incident: the line of authority, listed in Item II above, and indications of the types of hazards to be found within the laboratory. Some areas have ordinances requiring the use of the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) Diamond for the latter purpose, but unfortunately, most laboratories would have at least some material with high-risk ratings in all categories. Pictographic labels identifying classes of hazards within a facility are also used. The best way to alert firefighters would be to have laboratory inventories on a computer database and provision made for emergency response groups to have electronic access to this information. Software is available, although not yet in wide use, which does this. This plan incorporates some aspects of the Laboratory Industrial Hygiene Plan as required under OSHA, which could be deleted, since the written industrial hygiene plan must be maintained. However, items I, II, III, V, VI, and VII are essential. The plan just described should be reviewed with each new employee and at least annually for all occupants of a laboratory. An annual practice drill is strongly recommended. ©2000 CRC Press LLC 2. Organizational Emergency Plan There is some overlap between planning for responses to local emergencies in individual laboratories and the response to large-scale emergencies. At the extremes, the distinction is clear. A minor spill or a trash can fire obviously is a minor emergency while a fire that involves an entire building or a major spill where hazardous materials are released into the environment clearly is beyond the capacity of laboratory personnel. Planning needs to provide guidelines to cover the transition between the two levels to ensure that an appropriate response does occur. A comprehensive plan is intended to provide a general infrastructure for all classes of emergencies. Detailed plans are essential for organized emergency groups, but for the use of the general public a basic emergency plan is to evacuate the area or building, and call for emergency help. Often, evacuation will be more than is actually needed, but it is usually a conservative and safe approach. The essential information to enable this can be placed on a single page for a facility. Normally, planning for large-scale emergencies will be the responsibility of the corporate or institutional Emergency Committee, working with internal groups and the Local Emergency Planning Committee (required under SARA Title III) and nearby support agencies. A basic means of reacting to virtually any emergency for untrained persons would be to place a sign, such as is shown in Figure 2.1, on or near every telephone. In this case, it is up to the individual at the other end of the telephone line, normally a dispatcher, to give verbal directions for subsequent actions. The dispatcher needs to be well trained and provided with a list of individuals and groups whom they would notify of the incident, in an appropriate priority. These individuals, groups, and priorities are defined in the master emergency plan for the organization. Following is a simplified table of contents for an emergency plan established for an area containing a university, major commercial activities including chemically related industries, transportation sources (highway, rail, and air), and the usual variety of emergency support groups. 1.0 Charge 1.1 Assignment of legal authority and responsibilities Charge Members of governing body 1.2 Purpose of plan, functional description 1.3 Instruction on how to use the plan 1.4 Initial conditions Demographics Geographic description Natural risks Climate Time factors Local hazard sources Utilities Local administrative units Local emergency units Local resources 1.5 Communications Notification procedures List of agencies/personnel requiring notification Telephone lists Key personnel and alternates Telephone tree Emergency assistance numbers Local Regional State [...]... Regulatory Commission, phone no 30 1-4 9 2- 7 000 (also state or regional federal office) or http://nrc.gov/ Occupational Safety and Health Administration, phone no 20 2- 2 4 5-3 045 (also state or regional federal office) also see http://www.osha.gov Poison Control Center, phone no 50 2- 3 6 2- 2 327 also see list of certified poison control centers listed above Many of these are sources of information only, and normally... 40 4-6 3 9-1 024 or http://www.cdc.gov/ CHEMTREC (for chemical and pesticide spills), phone no 80 0-4 2 4-9 300 or http://www.cma.com/ Compressed Gas Association, phone no 21 2- 4 1 2- 9 000 or http://www.naturalgas.org/CGA/index.htm National Fire Prevention Association, phone no 61 7-7 7 0-3 000 or http://www.nfpa.org/home.html National Response Center (USCG and EPA), phone no 80 0-4 2 4-8 8 02, or http://www.epa.gov: 120 01/s97is.vts... Laboratories 20 00 CRC Press LLC National Academy Press 21 01 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20 418 ! Handbook of Chemistry and Physics CRC Press, LLC 20 00 Corporate Blvd., NW Boca Raton, FL 33431 ! Laboratory Safety Principles and Practice American Society for Microbiology 1913 I St., N.W Washington, DC 20 006 ! National Health Council, 1730 M Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20 03 6-4 505 20 2- 7 8 5-3 910... every emergency plan Figure 2. 2 A typical military-type command structure for responding to a substantial emergency a Emergency Plan Components A partial list of some of the more common laboratory- related emergency situations was given in Section 2. 1 A written response plan should be provided for each of these situations, identifying the likely locations where these classes of problems would be apt to... Willoughby, OH 4409 4-5 9 92 http://www.meisterpro.cm/ ! Fire Prevention Guide on Hazardous Materials National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1-Batterymarch Park P.O Box 9101 Quincy, MA 022 6 9-9 101 http://www.nfpa.org/ ! First Aid Manual for Chemical Accidents, 2 nd Edition Lefevre, Marc J.(Editor), Conibear, Shirley (Contributor) John Wiley & Sons 605 Third Avenue New York, NY 1015 8-0 0 12 ! Hazardous Materials... too that this person be sufficiently flexible mentally that proffered advice is not disregarded out of hand Since the most often employed emergency response structure is semi-military in nature, a person often designated as the emergency coordinator will be the public safety director In the context of laboratory emergencies, most public safety managers are likely to have had police training, not scientific... order of 15 to 30 seconds , and in the case of carbon dioxide units, it is necessary to be within 10 feet of the fire to u s e them effectively A third type of unit, no longer being produced, which does not have this latter negative characteristic, contains one of a class of chlorinated fluorocarbons called 20 00 CRC Press LLC Halon™ The Montreal Protocol, regulating chlorinated fluorocarbons because of. .. searches A library of reference materials should be maintain ed for the use of the emergency responders Following is a short summary of some of the more useful references, many of which are revised frequently Although these are primarily printed books, today a number of other types of data information sources are becoming widely available for chemical pr o d u c t s , primarily as a result of information... Hazardous Materials Department of Transportation Office of Secretary Transportation Washington, DC 20 590 http://hazmat.dot.gov/toc.htm ! Material Safety Data Sheets Master File for Chemicals in Use at the Institution (Available from chemical manufacturer or generic database, often directly on the Internet from the manufacturer Note that there are now a number of commercial providers of generic databases, either... or jewelry in * There are two schools of thought on the use of contact lens in the laboratory Current thinking is that they are permissible, especially if chemical splash goggles are worn over them Some feel that there is a risk of vapors of tissue corrosive materials finding their way behind the lens by capillary action and do not allow use of contact lens 20 00 CRC Press LLC the affected area should . Keith Ph.D. "EMERGENCIES" CRC Handbook of Laboratory Safety Edited by A. Keith Furr, Ph.D. Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC ,20 00 20 00 CRC Press LLC Chapter 2 EMERGENCIES Emergencies are, by. phone no. 40 4-6 3 9-1 024 or http://www.cdc.gov/ ! CHEMTREC (for chemical and pesticide spills), phone no. 80 0-4 2 4-9 300 or http://www.cma.com/ ! Compressed Gas Association, phone no. 21 2- 4 1 2- 9 000 or . phone no. 30 1-4 9 2- 7 000 (also state or regional federal office) or http://nrc.gov/ ! Occupational Safety and Health Administration, phone no. 20 2- 2 4 5-3 045 (also state or regional federal office) also