Officials to improve city emergency plan

Baltimore fire officials said yesterday they will improve the city's hazardous materials accident plan, but they reassured the public that they are prepared to respond to chemical accidents.

Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, the Fire Department's spokesman, said the city's plan, written in 1987 and updated in 1999, "doesn't go into specifics, but that doesn't mean we don't have those specifics."

"There are a lot of other resources available to us," Torres said in a news conference yesterday. "We are up to the task."

But an environmental attorney who has pressured the city on the issue for years insisted that the plan is inadequate, mostly because it does not spell out detailed evacuation plans in the event of a chemical accident.

Rena Steinzor, co-director of the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic, said the 1986 federal law that sets out requirements for the plan exempts cities from lawsuits over their contents.

"If I could sue the city over the adequacy of that plan, I would take the case in a heartbeat," Steinzor said. "Congress in its wisdom was very specific about the contents of the plan. ... They [city officials] are in direct and clear violation of federal law."

Torres called yesterday's news conference in response to a report in The Sun that raised questions about the city's hazardous accident plan.

The 440-page document does not include provisions for responding to an accident involving chemicals carried by train or truck. It makes no mention of the Howard Street tunnel, where a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed, caught fire and spilled hydrochloric acid last week, tying the downtown area in knots for five days.

The plan contains three pages on evacuations, but Steinzor said those pages are not detailed enough to provide a working blueprint for evacuations and thus do not fulfill Congress' requirements.

Unable to fill gaps

Fire Marshal William E. Martin, who heads the mostly volunteer committee that produced the plan, told The Sun Wednesday that the committee has been unable to fill several gaps in the plan because the department's budget has no money to pay for it.

Filling those gaps would improve the city's ability to protect lives in the event of an accident even more serious than last week's, Martin said.

"Bill Martin is a tremendous public servant who has been in the hot seat for years," Steinzor said. "He has no resources, and he is not backed up in getting the resources. ... He puts his life on the line, and he knows the city isn't ready."

Torres said yesterday that the city is ready. He said the Fire Department has trained about 250 firefighters to combat chemical accidents.

The city has computer programs that allow firefighters to map the potential flow of toxic gases from an accident site, and an automated telephone system that can warn residents to evacuate or seek shelter, he said.

MARC rescue drill

Although the city has never conducted a drill in the Howard Street tunnel, Torres said it did stage a drill six weeks ago in which firefighters performed a mock rescue of MARC train commuters stranded by a hypothetical fire in the Biddle Street rail tunnel, near Broadway and Hoffman streets.

The city also conducted a drill on The Sun's property near its printing plant about three years ago, in which firefighters responded to a simulated collision between a train and a truck carrying hazardous chemicals, he said.

The city's accident plan "doesn't go into specifics," Torres said, "but the plan is specific enough that the players know what their roles are."

Steinzor disagreed, saying that firefighters did a magnificent job of fighting last week's fire, but other agencies were not equally well prepared to cope if an evacuation had been necessary.

'Fourth wake-up call'

"This is the fourth wake-up call the city has gotten and by far the most serious," she said, noting three chemical accidents in the Wagner's Point neighborhood in the 1990s, "and we have no indication that anything has changed."

At the mayor's request, emergency planners will conduct a comprehensive review of the plan and other elements of the city's emergency response, Torres said.

He said the city will seek federal grants to pay for improvements.

"We're receptive to suggestions that anyone can make to improve this plan," Torres said. "We want to learn. ... We will take a close look."

Related topic galleries: Emergency Planning, Emergency Incidents, Environmental Pollution, Fires, Railway Accidents, Government, National Government

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