June’s arrival brought the Atlantic and Gulf Coast hurricane season-and with it several briefings about what governments and industry have done to prepare. The National Petrochemical & Refiners Association went one step further and published an emergency operations white paper that went into impressive detail.
NPRA emphasized that the document was not meant to replace individual companies’ policies. The idea was to collect what refiners and petrochemical plant operators learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year and develop a series of recommendations.
One point made repeatedly was that plant operators are pretty much on their own in protecting their businesses and helping their employees in a natural disaster’s wake. Civil authorities’ first priority is to assist other displaced families and individuals.
Plant operators had emergency plans before last year’s hurricanes, according to Maurice McBride, the NPRA staff member who works with the organization’s security committee. “But it was the severity of Katrina in particular and the apparent breakdown of law and order that no one had foreseen,” he told me.
Security viewpoint
The recommendations came from a security, instead of an operating, point of view. “These were the people in charge of employees’ safety, which quickly extended to their families. If an employee couldn’t be certain that his family was safe, he probably wouldn’t come to work,” McBride said.
NPRA member companies adapted quickly, he continued. They tried to find employees and their families immediately and set up temporary shelters and food supplies when needed.
As the Federal Emergency Management Agency encountered extraordinary logistical challenges, its greatest contribution became simply getting information to hurricane victims, McBride said. “Its first responsibility was to the general public. People in industry and government quickly realized this,” he said.
Local relationships
“We learned that local law enforcement was not fully operational; it still was needed. Getting employees to and from work during curfews could have been a problem. Fortunately, refiners and petrochemical plant operators try to maintain good relationships with adjacent communities,” McBride observed.
He noted that NPRA and its members also have a good relationship with the US Department of Homeland Security, which takes the public-private partnership idea seriously. “This is one government agency which recognizes that all knowledge doesn’t have to reside in Washington.”
Consequently, McBride is concerned that Congress might try to turn DHS and its agencies into security-enforcement entities. “I’m frustrated that some members of Congress believe companies won’t do what’s necessary to enhance plant security. If there’s one thing that Katrina taught us, it’s that no one benefits when product isn’t moving out the plant gate,” he said.
