COSE Update - September 2008 - (Page 14)

train Derailment/Power outage p roximity to multiple transportation with the Lake County Fire Departments, options is a bonus for businesses which all called on Lubrizol to help that receive and ship goods. Lubrizol respond to the disaster. Corporation’s Painesville Township “We became the entrance point for facility is a chemical manufacturing facility all of the outside agencies that were with headquarters in Wickliffe, Ohio, and entering the scene from the east end of the is planted on a 150-acre campus, 78 of derailment,” says Patrick Shannon, health which are developed for processing and and safety emergency response supervisor manufacturing. The 24/7/365 operation is at Lubrizol. The company has a foam fire located in the middle of a major railway and engine to fight flammable liquid fires, and two key interstate highways. Transportation a private fire water system that the county is a good thing. Except when it goes bad. tapped into. All the while, Lubrizol needed The CSX train derailment on Oct. 10, to maintain security in the plant with all of 2007, was within eyeshot of Lubrizol’s the extra traffic, and focus on an efficient plant. Reports said the loud explosion was shutdown plan since loss of power could accompanied by a flash of light. The 120-car compromise the safety of plant operations. train carried some hazardous materials “We have done a thorough job over the and derailed multiple tank cars containing years of analyzing our risks and hazards, and ethanol, which subsequently ignited. developing a plan that can address any type of Employees at Lubrizol could see the situation that comes our way,” Shannon says. black smoke. A train derailment, per se, was not Power would be shut off in certain areas. in the plan. But the company did have “We were on the wrong side of the switch, procedures in place for managing a power meaning that we were going to lose power, outage, shutting down the plant and which is critical for a chemical company assisting emergency response teams. to have,” says Joe Marcsik, manufacturing “Essentially, there was no warning when manager at Lubrizol. the power was being shut down, so operators Lubrizol has an all-hazard plan that scrambled to shut down [manufacturing] addresses any potential emergency in processes so we wouldn’t have any the plant: security issues, bomb threats, environmental issues,” Marcsik says. fires, explosions, spills, power outages. Once learning that power would be They have systems for shutting down and shut off, Lubrizol immediately relied on its starting up the plant, which is a laborious procedure for securely pumping, moving process for a nonstop operation. The and venting systems in the plant. Most Cose 2008 has a 3:Cose 2006 3of 3.qxdof the night was spent shutting down the 8/18/2008 1:34 PM Page 1 company also 3 of mutual aid agreement Successfully assisting clients in a wide range of industrial and office/commercial real estate needs. Please stop by our booth at the Small Business Conference to see how we can help your business CRESCO real estate plant based on the all-hazard plan that Lubrizol tests regularly. Directives for the shutdown and, later, start-up processes came from the ECC or Emergency Control Center, which consists of Lubrizol managers who meet in case of emergency to formalize plans and provide additional resources to the emergency response organization. “When you lose utilities in a chemical site, a lot of bad things can happen,” Marcsik points out, drawing worst-case scenarios like offsite emissions, water contamination or any type of leak into surrounding communities. The company has spent countless hours preparing contingency plans for such events and, as a result, avoided such disasters, Shannon says. He emphasizes that Lubrizol’s top priorities in case of a business interruption are employees, the community, the environment and customers. Lubrizol needed diesel delivered to power generators. Carbon dioxide runs some of the company’s backup electrical systems. Next, the company coordinated the shift change and traffic flow because the plant was an entrance for emergency response teams. “It was important for us to have people relieved,” Marcsik adds, noting that employees worked around the clock to shut down the plant, assist with emergency efforts, and then start up the plant after power was restored to the area. “We needed food and supplies,” Marcsik notes. “The ECC reconvened at 5 a.m. after leaving the site at midnight,” Marcsik continues. “We knew once the [CSX disaster] was under control, power would get turned back on and our engineers needed to review every batch [of product] in the plant and get processes back up and running safely.” A prewritten procedure serves as a checklist during power outages and ushers managers and employees through plant shutdown and start-up actions. “It took a good six to seven hours to get everything back up, online and running again,” Marcsik says. 14 • cose update • september 2008 http://www.crescorealestate.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of COSE Update - September 2008

COSE Update - September 2008 Contents Memo Upfront Vision Tech Business Interrupted The “Bigness” of Small Business What’s the Plan? People Telecom Advocacy Communications Health Pipeline Connect Arts My Cause Plugged In

COSE Update - September 2008

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