Doubts billow over response to chem fires
Patchwork notification effort leaves some residents in dark
Mary Gonzalez wanted to know why there wasn’t an alarm when a tank holding toxic chemicals caught fire in Deer Park in March.
“When there’s an accident, we don’t know about it,” she said during a town hall meeting at Milby High School to talk about the Intercontinental Terminals Co. fire, which sent a plume of dark smoke over the Houston area for days. She’s not alone in her frustration. Residents have grown increasingly wary and distrustful of the petrochemical companies that help power the local economy, demanding more accountability and transparency about fires and environmental incidents and telling officials that they often feel left in the dark.
There have been three major plant fires — one fatal — in recent months, as well as a vessel collision in the Houston Ship Channel that
spilled more than 11,000 barrels of a gasoline blend, renewing concerns about air and water quality in the region. The incidents come less than two years after the Arkema plant explosion and fire during Hurricane Harvey led to a chemical release, prompting Harris County prosecutors to bring criminal charges against the company and top executives.
These incidents have highlighted the lack of a central system for notifying the public as already exists for severe weather or missing children. Some say a better system is critical in constantly evolving situations where a community can suddenly be exposed to cancercausing chemicals in a split second if the wind blows in a different direction.
Decisions about chemical alerts are now left up to local agencies, with a patchwork of systems that largely depend on communities knowing how to get the information. Localities, for their part, depend on a timely and accurate flow of information from companies — something that officials say can be lacking.
Gonzalez relies on the media to find out what’s happening, but she wonders, “What about people who don’t watch the news all the time like me?”
Unique challenge
It was 10:03 a.m. March 17 when the city of Deer Park, about 20 miles east of downtown Houston, received the first call.
“Have y’all been notified about a fire at one of the plants?” the caller asked.
There was no information, the Deer Park police dispatcher said.
Emergency and law enforcement personnel were calling to know if anyone knew anything. Nothing in La Porte. What about Deer Park? Baytown?
At 10:11 a.m. a caller who was in a nearby plant told dispatch that the fire was on Independent Parkway, but that’s all he knew.
“We’ll get somebody out there to check it out because at this point you are the only thing that has given us anything with an exact location,” the operator told him.
The calls kept coming from passersby and residents seeing a black plume of smoke.
“I’m a concerned citizen. What’s on fire in Deer Park?” a woman asked at 10:14 a.m.
“We don’t have any information currently,” the dispatcher responded.
Moments later, the confirmation came that the fire was at the Intercontinental Terminals Co. plant. Still when residents called, the response was the same.
“I’m off East Boulevard. I see a large smoke cloud in the sky and I don’t know if I should be concerned or not, if it’s in the neighborhood or something,” a woman said at 10:18 a.m.
“We are currently aware of it,” dispatch said. “We currently don’t have any information regarding it.”
All emergency crews knew was that the company was handling it internally.
At 10:21 a.m., ITC sent out the first electronic notification saying that there had been an incident at the facility, but that the type of chemical was unknown.
Meanwhile, deputy constables were sent to direct traffic near the plume without knowing what chemical was burning.
At 10:29 a.m., Robert Hemminger, director of Deer Park’s emergency services division, was still trying to find someone at ITC.
“I’ve tried reaching out to the plant manager and the emergency response guy, but neither one are answering,” he said.
“And we still don’t know what the chemical is?” the operator asked.
“Right,” Hemminger replied.
‘I don’t have any information’
By 10:47 a.m., Deer Park city officials knew it was a “nasty chemical,” based on what Assistant Fire Chief Phillip Arroyo had said, but still no name.
The city of Deer Park issued a shelter-in-place out of caution.
“I got an alert saying to shelter in place. I need to know why,” a caller told the city’s dispatch at 11:01 a.m.
“Ma’am, I don’t have any information other than you need to shelter in place,” the operator said.
“But you don’t know why?” the caller asked.
“No ma’am, I don’t have any information,” the dispatcher responded.
And while La Porte and Deer Park officials were posting on social media that they were aware something was happening, the information available was limited.
It would be up to an hour and a half from the first call until emergency personnel were told that the initial tank that caught fire at the petrochemical facility was holding naphtha, a highly flammable component in gasoline that can irritate the nose and throat when inhaled.
“ITC’s top priority is the safety of the community, employees and first responders,” an ITC spokesman said. “Before any specific announcement to the public, incident commanders, including ITC personnel physically on site, moved quickly to assess the situation, determine the scope of the incident and identify immediate resources needed.”
Gonzalez was sitting outside her house in south Houston with her black chihuahua, Lady, about 14 miles from ITC, but she didn’t pay much attention to the fire.
“I figured I’m far away,” she said. “But air travels. Wind travels.”
Since then, she said, she’s had a sore throat that won’t go away.
‘Guard against complacency’
Emails obtained through a public records request show the coordination going on among the different agencies while the fire was burning — with constant discussions about shelter-in place-decisions, evacuations, school closings and air quality to address public concerns.
There were also conference calls several times a day. In total, more than 100 responders and 50 agencies were involved, according to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.
While cities such as La Porte were regularly updating their social media accounts and sending telephone notifications, there was a day where the information was not made readily available, said Kristin Gauthier, La Porte’s emergency management coordinator.
“We have to guard against complacency in a long event like this, and understand the public’s concerns when they are aware of an ongoing situation, then they begin to experience an odor at their home or business,” she said during a recent citizens advisory meeting in La Porte. “We are working together to better understand what we could have done better to communicate the risk and other factors that concerned the public.”
She said they could have done a better job explaining the coordination and information-sharing process, as well as the science behind decisions such as why one city was under a shelter-in-place but another was not.
“This event was a huge test of our ability to manage public information and collaborate with numerous agencies to ensure the information being shared was factual and consistent,” she said.
In the end, Harris County officials determined they weren’t prepared to deal with an incident of this magnitude, which involved concerns not only about the stopand-start fire and burning chemicals but also a containment-wall breach that sent contaminants into the ship channel, closing it temporarily.
“The system in place has been long-neglected,” Hidalgo wrote in an email. “We need to build up our understaffed agency and improve outdated technology.”
The county created a website on the spot that could report airquality readings from local, state and federal sources in real time. Hidalgo also ordered a gap analysis to help identify what’s needed, from equipment to strategic overhauls.
How it works
After the ITC fire, some state lawmakers criticized the time that it took ITC to report which chemicals were burning, delaying notices to the public.
During an April 5 hearing, state Rep. Mary Ann Perez, D-Houston, and other lawmakers suggested companies should be required to report basic information about chemical fires almost immediately.
Since then, Perez said, she’s spoken to company officials, who addressed some of her concerns.
She still thinks the company should have provided information in a more timely manner.
She said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Harris County have air monitors “and all of this stuff is public knowledge. If any constituent is concerned, they can go and see what those readings are.”
When there’s an industry-related incident, the company is supposed to let officials know via a system called e-notify within 15 minutes and post it on the Community Awareness Emergency Response, or CAER, an online platform run by the East Harris County Manufacturers Association.
“Good follow-up communication is always needed after the fact,” said Jeff Suggs, emergency management communications chairman for EHCMA.
There are also local emergency planning committees — volunteer organizations composed of emergency responders and industry, government, education and community groups that are supposed to provide joint emergency planning, training and outreach.
There are nine in east Harris County, but not all operate the same, and some environmental advocates view them as too industry-friendly.
The use of CAER, while considered a best practice, is not required, and information posted is often not specific.
Only about 4,000 people have downloaded the CAER app, but Suggs said many news outlets use it and push the messages to their audiences.
It is then up to local jurisdictions to determine how to inform the public when something happens. In cases such as the ITC fire that affect multiple jurisdictions, Harris County can help amplify messages, said Francisco Sanchez, the county’s deputy emergency management coordinator.
Some cities have systems that include sirens; alarm beacons in schools; email, telephone and text notifications; designated websites; and use of social media to notify residents. But not all localities have the same capacity.
The biggest challenge, though, is making the public aware and trusting of the information.
During a community meeting for Harris County Precinct 2 on May 22, a Baytown resident said a better alert system was needed, not because officials don’t have one now, but because “everybody is so used to getting them, we don’t pay attention to them anymore.”
People start losing sight of what’s normal and what’s not because they grow accustomed to the odors and flares, said Adrian Shelley, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office.
“It’s entirely conceivable that something is happening next door, that there’s a release of an invisible gas and people do not recognize it’s dangerous because they
are accustomed to it,” he said.
Public knowledge
Gonzalez has lived in the same southeast Houston house for 40 years and has never heard of CAER or opted in to one of the notification systems.
“Unless there’s a meeting like the one we went to or you have kids in school, you don’t find out,” said Gonzalez, 73.
Her cousin, Margaret Arrizola, lived in an apartment complex in Crosby, less than 2 miles from the chemical company KMCO, where a chemical tank ignited on April 2. She didn’t find out until Gonzalez called her.
Hours later, many neighbors still didn’t know what had happened at the plant, about 25 miles northeast of downtown Houston. A plant worker was killed and several others critically injured.
These areas sit near the heart of the country’s petrochemical industry, surrounded by plants that produce and use different chemicals, which may be transported on highways, pipelines and railcars. The risk for a chemical incident is always there.
Local governments send out information about alert systems in utility bills, pass out flyers and do outreach campaigns.
In La Porte, Gauthier said, the city has an emergency preparedness guide that it distributes to new residents when they go to City Hall to turn on the water. It also offers videos about the alarm system and sheltering in place.
But because there are so many entities often involved in an incident, Shelley said, residents get varying information at different times.
“In most cases, it requires some pre-planning from the average community member to be plugged in. They have to opt-in, they have to know what CAER is and most people are not prepared in that way,” he said.
And the information gap widens for non-English speakers.
“The information is not adequately made available to residents, and when it is, it’s often too technical or incomplete,” said Marcelys Perez, an advocate with the East End environmental organization TEJAS.
She found out about the ITC blaze after a friend happened to drive by the area. But typically, people find out from television, said Perez, who also runs a group for mothers called Love Without Obstacles.
Not everyone is in a position to follow the news or be in front of a computer, she said. Some of the moms in her group are illiterate. She would like to see more campaigns and for localities to search for alternative ways of informing diverse communities.
In some areas in east Harris County, more than 40 percent of the adult population doesn’t speak English at home.
La Porte created a video in Spanish instructing residents when to shelter in place and what they have to do. But their alerts are in English only, giving residents the option of calling directly to get the information in Spanish, Gauthier said.
During the ITC fire, the company translated some of its updates into Spanish, and news conferences were held in both languages.
“Because we had multiple agencies providing information, coverage to nonEnglish-speaking communities or even the hearing impaired was greatly improved over previous incidents,” said Hemminger, with the city of Deer Park.
The information is there, Gauthier said. “I just think, as a region not just city of La Porte, we can do a better job getting the information out there.”
System of confusion
State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, grew up in the east end of Manchester, a neighborhood surrounded by gas and chemical plants.
“Many times there were things going on, we would see emergency vehicles coming in and out and we didn’t know what was going on,” she said.
About 20 years ago, she was among those who challenged the companies and negotiated a good-neighbor agreement that included an emergency notification system.
“An alarm would sound that the entire community could hear and would turn on the radio to the station the company bought,” she said. A bilingual message about what to do would follow.
“If we could do it back then, we could certainly do something that fits with today’s way of communicating,” she said.
Juan Parras, who runs TEJAS, says people don’t always know what the alerts mean.
“They always tell us we have an adequate alert system to notify people, but we find all of that information to have little impact on communities,” Parras said. “In some cases, people don’t know whether it’s an alarm or change in shifts.”
The number of different systems creates confusion, with people unsure of where they need to subscribe or where they can get the most accurate information, Shelley said. He said Houston received many calls from concerned residents during the ITC fire even though it was not located inside the city.
The group’s position, he said, is that emergency management officials should share as much information as they can as quickly as possible, even if they have to make it clear they are publishing initial readings that have not been verified.
There’s also a responsibility from the public to register for those alerts, said Sanchez, with Harris County.
But for Shelley, the onus shouldn’t fall on underserved communities.
“Quite the opposite — it’s the responsibility of emergency managers and companies creating these risky situations to meet community members where they are and ensure systems are put in place to keep communities safe that are wellknown by communities,” Shelley said.
In 2017, Public Citizen was behind a bill to push toxic alerts to mobile phones.
The bill directed the State Emergency Response Commission to develop a statewide system to inform the public of chemical emergencies using traditional and social media and wireless emergency alerts, where phone users would get the alerts unless they chose not to, just as some receive Amber Alerts and weather warnings.
But opponents, including industry representatives, maintained that another alert system would create confusion, Shelley said.
The bill was in part modeled after Alert Iowa, an emergency managing system made available to cities and counties about five years ago when officials were looking at their own communication gaps, said John Benson, chief of staff with the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. While some communities had some type of alerting system, not all of them did or could afford it.
When the bill was proposed, about half of the counties used some type of alert system at a total cost of $600,000, he said. The system, now funded by the state, cost $400,000.
Currently 88 of the state’s 99 counties use it and 2.3 million phone numbers have been registered. It has become a valuable tool not only to reach the public, but also volunteer responders, he said.
It is voluntary and messaging is done at the local level. What the system offers, Benson said, is uniformity and the ability to reach people in multiple jurisdictions at once in case of a fastbreaking emergency and when there’s little time to coordinate.
There are multiple messaging and alerting systems out there, Benson said.
“You need to take into account all of them and don’t rely upon one to think this is going to be the silver bullet that’s going to solve everything. To paraphrase, you’ve got to have multiple arrows in the quiver,” Benson said.
The idea of establishing a statewide system has not gained much traction in Texas.
The EHCMA is not completely opposed to the idea, Suggs said, but he felt there needed to be more conversations about how it would actually work.
Ultimately, he said, communication is better left to each jurisdiction to know how to best communicate with its residents.
Frank Bengochea, emergency management coordinator with the city of Pasadena, said that while improvements can always be made, the current system works. Pasadena relies on a telephone messaging system that residents can sign up for as well as social media and a siren system in parts of the city.
Deer Park’s Hemminger said emergency warning messages are only efficiently disseminated at the local level, closest to the incident.
In Harris County, Sanchez said coming upgrades to the Wireless Emergency Alerts system should address some of the concerns “for people who don’t take the time to opt in to other systems.”
The updated system will increase the allowed character count and include the option to send messages in Spanish and to a specific area.
If they had capabilities to geotarget push alerts, Sanchez said, they could draw a polygon over communities such as Deer Park or Pasadena to send shelter-in-place messages, or what’s happening and where to go for more information.
With the system, officials could target residents who may be seeing a plume of smoke but are not impacted and don’t need to shelter in place.
In Harris County, Hidalgo, who took office in January, wants to streamline communication by bringing together all resources, including alert messaging and monitoring data, with a cohesive platform that residents can easily access. Part of it will be revamping the county’s emergency management website, ReadyHarris.org.
“We need a better balance,” Hidalgo said, “between having a thriving petrochemical industry and living next to it.”