Baltimore Tunnel Firefighters - Case Study Example

Baltimore (Howard Street) Tunnel Firefighters On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 18, 2001 a CSX freight train entered the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore. Minutes later, encountering excessive smoke, the engineers decoupled the engines and fled the tunnel soon realizing that the train was on fire. They contacted the CSX dispatcher who contacted the Baltimore Fire Department. The burning train included in its load numerous potentially toxic and explosive chemicals. Baltimore was encountering a crisis, a crisis that one of the first responders later described as “everyones worse nightmare.” The following discussion will focus on this incident. Specifically, three aspects of the incident will be examined. First, the characteristics of the incident in its initial phases will be assessed to determine which where the most important and why. Second, the unique and significant geographic elements of the incident will be identified. Finally, the role of communications in the response will be examined: What problems communications presented and how they were handled will be studied. The nature of the incident immediately presented the officials responsible for responding with four significant issues: Initially disbelief, then uncertainty, fear and complexity. Smoke related incidents at the Howard Street Tunnel were not uncommon. False alarms frequently occurred when CSX staff or above ground commuters in the area mistook excessive diesel smoke from the operation of the train engines as more significant incidents. The initial response at the Baltimore Fire Department was that this incident was simply another false alarm. This disbelief was replaced by uncertainty when the first units on the scene realized this was more than another false smoke alarm. It was clearly not a smoke incident alone, but what it was exactly was impossible to determine for a host of reasons. What it was was a train fire. A fire on a train that was carrying “a witches brew” of toxic chemicals. Even once officials had determined what chemicals were on the train they had no idea what they were capable of in combination. Officials were not sure whether they were capable of becoming a BLEVE- a “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.” Furthermore, efforts to determine precise which cars were on fire and which cars were proximate to them were impossible as the fire was underground and the tunnel was full of smoke. There only evidence was the indirect evidence of the smoke exiting the tunnel. All of this uncertainty created fear; pure, unadulterated fear. There was a fire involving a host of toxic chemicals that might be explosive and the fire was in a tunnel, a particularly difficult situation to deal with. The fear and uncertainty were magnified by the complexity of this situation. The tunnel was directly below a major water main. It was not known if the waterman would rupture and what the consequences of this secondary incident, massive flooding, might be. Further, the tunnel was in an urban area and there was the potential for the fire, the potential explosion, or the potential flooding could have on the integrity of the adjacent buildings on the surface. The initial incident could be magnified by building collapses. It was a “multi-dimensional incident.” Finally, there were significant issues of jurisdictional complexity. The nature and location of the incident meant that the response “would involve over a dozen city, state and federal agencies, as well as several private companies and contractors ...” To summarize the Howard tunnel incident contained elements of uncertainty, fear complexity and jurisdictional overlap. All of these features of the initial incident were elements of, and exacerbated by, the geographical context of the incident. As a result of the fire being in a smoke-filed tunnel and involving potentially toxic smoke it was difficult to approach. The fire could not be seen. The responders quickly determined the contents of the train but they did not know precisely where in the train the fire had started and exactly what chemicals were involved in the fire or proximate to it and about to possibly become involved in the fire. It meant the possibility of an explosion and a tunnel collapse was a very real possibility. Second, as noted earlier, the tunnel was beneath a major water main. There was the possibility of an explosion resulting in local flooding and the disruption of the urban water supply. The tunnel was also in the midst of a major urban area and the possibility of an explosion and flooding carried with it the possibility of major structural collapses and massive civilian casualties in the affected surface structures. Finally, the specific urban location added another major problem. The possibly toxic cloud could possibly affect the local baseball stadium Oriole Park at Camden Yards where the Baltimore Orioles were about to start a Major League baseball game against the Texas Rangers. This meant the local roads were clogged with vehicles and two thousand stadium employees and approximately five thousand fans already in the stadium area were also at risk. Overall, the underground location in an urban area, with a major sporting event scheduled to start were all geographic factors that massively increased the potential consequences of the incident. From the very first minute of the crisis this issue of the primacy of communication was evident. In a tunnel the CSX engineers could not contact their dispatcher by radio. This delayed CSX being informed until the engines were decoupled from the train and exited the tunnel. This, in turn, delayed the Baltimore fire department from being informed, by the CSX dispatcher in Florida until 4:15, 68 minutes after the accident occurred. The number of agencies and jurisdictions involved, and the location also made the issue of communications paramount. Luckily, a handful of specific factors alleviated the potential communication problems. The Fire Department were first responders and assumed the role of primary agency. Their Chief, David Heinbuch was familiar with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), considering them another fire company and they were willing to accept his leadership, and both agencies shared mutual respect and confidence. Similarly, city officials and the police department had an established protocol and assembled at the Comstat Room in the police department and offered a unified approach in support of the Fired Department and MDE. Consequently, it is reasonable to assert that the exceptional communication response that “rolled out as smoothly as a training exercise” was key to the success of the response to an incident that had potentially catastrophic consequences. References “Almost a Worst Case Scenario”: The Baltimore Tunnel Fire of 2001 (A)”. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Case C16-04-1767.0. Read More