Back to basics
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There must be a full facility layout drawing showing
location of hazardous material, safety equipment,
assembly points. There should be an area where
information on hazardous material is stored, for example
material safety data sheets (MSDS);
There must be a scheduled procedure to deactivate
any emergency plan that was activated for whatever
reason and a site sign-off by the incident commander
in conjunction with the fire chief prior to the facility
restarting production operations;
A full-blown investigation of what happened, commonly
known as an incident critique, with a view to learn from
the occurrence. Whilst it is not always humanly possible
to cover all eventualities, we can at least learn from past
ones; and
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The Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) must
be notified within 72 hours and a full report submitted.
So, you can see an emergency plant covers a load of issues.
The critical question you must ask yourself is: are you
prepared? Are your systems geared for it? Do you have
the correct PPE? Are your people trained? It’s too late to
discover the shortfalls when it happens, because if that is
the case and there is a fatality, it will get really nasty for all
concerned.
I have been doing a bit of travelling around the country and
came across an ammonia plant that is in a particularly sad/
dangerous condition, and in the next issue, I’ll chat about these
installations that are a danger to all those in the vicinity, and
what can we do about it. RACA
QUOTE
OF THE MONTH
Wake up with determination.
Go to bed with satisfaction.
– success.com
68
RACA Journal I February 2020
www.hvacronline.co.za