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| Top Story | This story pubished online: Thursday, May 6, 2004 10:46 AM CDT |
Job Well Done: Review of response to Formosa plant explosion finds little to criticize
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But from the rescuing of the injured to the extraordinary efforts of fire, police and other first responders, the April 23 explosion and fire at the Formosa Plastics Corp. chemical plant in Illiopolis is going down as a textbook case of how to deal with catastrophe.
Dozens of emergency workers met in Illiopolis on Saturday to analyze their performance and see what they could have done better. There were procedural details here and there they sought to improve but, overall, it turned out to be more an occasion for a group hug and a collective pat on the back.
"I received no negative feedback from that meeting at all," said Illiopolis Fire Chief Brad Stewart. "Why did it all go so well for us? To be honest, I'm not really sure. Maybe we just got lucky - and there was somebody above looking out for us. It just all went as right as it could have been, and we got back with everybody we left with, which is the biggest thing."
On paper at least, all the ingredients for mass chaos, panic and an even worse disaster were right there. The explosion and resulting fire, which burned for days, were inside a chemical plant that had huge quantities of volatile chemicals nearby.
Dozens of families had to be evacuated quickly at the same time as hundreds of emergency workers were pouring in. Sangamon County's Emergency Services and Disaster Agency said 28 fire departments responded from several counties. They were headed by a chemical specialist team from Springfield, but many of the rest were volunteers, ordinary men and women who left their families to come running because another community was in trouble.
"We even had one man who was down in Vandalia for the weekend, heard it on the news or whatever, and rushed up here," added Stewart. "Looking back, I just couldn't be more proud to be a part of this group. None of them balked, all of them jumped in and did whatever they were asked to do."
There was some initial confusion as the airwaves jammed up with radio communications, but things soon settled down. The Illiopolis police, Sangamon County Sheriff's Office, State Police and others dealt smoothly with security, evacuations and traffic control as the fire crews arrived from all directions. The Red Cross and other agencies offered aid, setting up evacuation shelters as far away as Decatur. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was among specialists on the scene quickly to monitor air and water and warn of any contamination hazards.
Unified fire and police command posts directed operations, with fire crews checking in as they arrived and getting instructions relayed from Stewart. He said that enabled him to know what everybody was doing.
"Nobody came in and said, 'We're here to save the day,' " he said.
"Everybody came and said 'What can we do?' and you gave them an assignment and they went ahead and did it well, no questions asked."
Surprisingly, the fire crews - many of whom had not worked with each other before - had no specific plan of attack formulated in advance. Illiopolis firefighters, familiar with the chemical plant, passed on information and worked with designated company officials who could brief them more specifically on what was located where.
The obvious priorities needed no disaster plan anyway: save lives and stop the situation from becoming worse.
"Our biggest fear was secondary explosions of chemicals stored out there in big tanks, which could have wiped out the firemen and, if they'd all gone up at once, might have taken most of the town," said Illiopolis Police Chief Bryon Honea. "Thankfully, the fire crews stopped that from happening."
Honea praised the attitude of local families for making the evacuation of Illiopolis - population about 1,000 - fast and effective for his department, which has two full-time and two part-time officers and an auxiliary officer.
"We didn't have to exert a lot of manpower getting people out," he said. "People knew the dangers, knew it would be a good idea to leave and we had no problems at all."
The police chief said there was no real disaster plan for the police agencies either, just a general idea of how to handle major incidents and the familiarity that comes with working with other senior officers he already knew well.
Formosa spokesman Robert Thibault said the company is more than satisfied with the effort to save lives and its facility.
"All the emergency responders did better than the best they could do; they performed spectacularly," he said.
"I remember the standing ovation the Illiopolis Fire Department got at a public meeting after the fire, and I hope all the responding fire departments got that kind of response from their own communities," he said.
Stewart recalls the thunderous applause in the Illiopolis High School gym, too, as almost the entire town stood up to salute his fire department.
"I used to go out to stuff like grass fires and think 'Do people even realize we're out here doing this?' " he said. "Then you walk into that gym and hear something like that and you know - yes - they really do realize."
Tony Reid can be reached at treid@;herald-review.com or 421-7977.
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