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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
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Appendix A
Historical Scenarios

The following historical incidents provide some perspective on the magnitude of the consequences that might result from the kinds of terrorist attacks described in the scenarios in Chapter 3. These incidents also served as a basis for the development of those four scenarios. This is not a comprehensive list of all relevant historical incidents in the chemical industry.

High-Volume Storage Scenario
Toxic or Flammable Chemicals at Fixed Sites

Stage One Historical Analogies (single event, no cascading events)


Facility: Azote de France Fertilizer Factory (owned by Atofina)

Location: Toulouse, France

Date of Event: September 21, 2001

Chemical(s) involved: Ammonium nitrate

Event: Explosion

Consequences of Event: 30 killed (7 off-site), 800 hospitalized, 2,400 injured, shock wave of 3.4 on the Richter scale, 50-foot crater resulted; 500

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×

homes uninhabitable and 85 schools or colleges damaged; chemical releases and structural damages at other facilities.1


Facility: Phillips Petroleum

Location: Pasadena, Texas

Date of Event: October 23, 1989

Chemical(s) involved: Plastics manufacturing

Event: An explosion in a polyethylene reactor was caused when a seal blew out on an ethylene loop reactor, releasing ethylene-isobutane and setting off a series of fires and explosions.

Consequences of Event: 23 fatalities, 130-300 injured; extensive facility damage.2


Facility: Marathon Refinery

Location: Texas City, Texas

Date of Event: 1987

Chemical(s) involved: Hydrofluoric acid

Event: Construction at Marathon refinery severs a pipe on an anhydrous hydrofluoric acid storage tank, releasing gas that forms a dense hydrofluoric acid vapor cloud that migrates through the community.

Consequences of Event: Approximately 4,000 people were evacuated and more than 1,000 were treated for injuries.3


Facility: BP Refinery

Location: Texas City, Texas

Date of Event: March 23, 2005

Chemical(s) involved: Unknown

Event: Overfill of flammable hydrocarbons in the tower of an octane boosting unit led to an explosion.

1  

Dechy, N., T. Bourdeaux, N. Ayrault, M-A. Kordek, and J.C. Le Coze. 2004. First lessons of the Toulouse ammonium nitrate disaster, 21st September 2001, AZF plant, France. Journal of Hazardous Materials 111:131-138.

2  

U.S. Fire Administration. 1989. Phillips Petroleum Chemical Plant Explosion and Fire: Pasadena, Texas, USFA-TR-035. Emmitsburg, MD.

3  

Health and Safety Executive. Accident Summary: Release of Hydrofluoric Acid from Marathon Petroleum Refinery, Texas, USA, 30th October 1987. Available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/comah/sragtech/casemarathon87.htm.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×

Consequences of Event: 15 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded.4


Facility: Union Carbide Corporation

Location: Bhopal, India

Date of Event: December 3, 1984

Chemical(s) involved: Methyl isocyanate (MIC)

Event: A relief valve lifted on a storage tank containing MIC, subsequently releasing a cloud of MIC gas onto residential areas surrounding the plant.

Consequences of Event: 3,000-7,000 people were killed immediately; 20,000 cumulative deaths; 200,000-500,000 injured; posttraumatic stress; continued medical consequences.5


Stage Two Historical Analogies (initial event with cascading events or major toxic release)


Facility: PEMEX LPG Terminal

Location: Mexico City

Date of Event: 1984 Chemical(s) involved: Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)

Event: The rupture of a transfer pipe produced a gas cloud that ignited a flare stack. At a late stage, the emergency shutdown button was pressed. About 15 minutes after the initial release the first boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion occurred. For the next hour and a half, a series of boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions followed as the LPG vessels exploded violently. LPG was said to rain down and surfaces covered in the liquid were set alight. The explosions were recorded on a seismograph at the University of Mexico.

Consequences of Event: 650 dead; 6,400 injured.6


Facility: SS Grandcamp.

Location: Texas City, Texas

Date of Event: April 16, 1947

4  

See the following web site for more information: http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=f21798a1b23f8be1.

5  

Lees, Frank. 1996. Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 3:A5.1-A5.11.

6  

Details available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/comah/sragtech/casepemex84.htm.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×

Chemical(s) involved: Ammonium nitrate

Event: Cargo of ammonium nitrate on the ship SS Grandcamp caught fire and eventually exploded at the loading dock.

Consequences of Event: More than 560 killed and 2,000 injured (unable to apportion the number killed or injured by the immediate explosion from those killed by cascading events that reflect the second portion of the scenario); explosion heard 150 miles away. There was also an explosion of a second ship containing ammonium nitrate. Other chemical releases and structural damage occurred at the nearby Monsanto Chemical Co. and other facilities.7


Facility: Ashland Oil Company, Inc.

Location: Floreffe, Pennsylvania

Date of Event: January 1988

Chemical(s) involved: Oil

Event: A 4 million gallon oil storage tank owned by Ashland Oil Company, Inc., split apart and collapsed at an oil storage facility near the Monongahela River. The tank split while being filled to capacity for the first time after it had been dismantled and moved from an Ohio location and reassembled at the Floreffe facility. The split released diesel oil over the tank’s containment dikes, across a parking lot on an adjacent property, and into an uncapped storm drain that emptied directly into the river.8

Consequences of Event: The oil spill temporarily contaminated drinking water sources for an estimated 1 million people in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio; contaminated river ecosystems; killed wildlife; damaged private property; and adversely affected businesses in the area; more than 511,000 gallons of diesel fuel remain unrecovered and are presumed to be in the rivers.


Facility: Motiva Enterprises, LLC

Location: Delaware City, Delaware

Date of Event: July 17, 2001

7  

See the following web site for more information: http://www.local1259iaff.org/report.htm.

8  

Ashland Oil Spill, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Available at http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/PA/ashlandoil/.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×

Chemical(s) involved: Sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid

Event: Welding operations on a catwalk triggered a fire that propagated into an explosion in the confined headspace of a large storage tank, causing its catastrophic collapse and release of its contents.

Consequences of Event: Collapse of a spent sulfuric acid storage tank (more than 250,000 gallons), triggered releases from nearby tanks, killed one contract worker, and caused a large fish kill. Other commonly bermed tanks were immersed in concentrated sulfuric acid for several days until they could be drained, but they did not fail.9


Facility: First Chemical Corporation

Location: Pascagoula, Mississippi

Date of Event: October 13, 2002

Chemical(s) involved: Mononitrotoluene

Cause of Event: A 145-foot-tall mononitrotoluene distillation tower exploded, injuring three workers; large projectiles of debris ruptured a large mononitrotoluene storage tank, damaged other plant equipment, and ignited fires on- and off-site; projectiles missed nearby storage vessels containing high volumes of ammonia, hydrogen, refined petroleum liquids and gases, and other hazardous materials.10

Consequences of Event: Three workers injured; fires, projectiles, and other damage to the plant and plant equipment.

High-Volume Transport Scenario

Location: Baltimore, Maryland

Date of Event: July 18, 2001

Chemical(s) involved: Hydrochloric acid, ethylhexyl phthalate, and tripropylene glycol

Event: An eastbound CSX1 freight train derailed 11 of its 60 cars while passing through the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore, Maryland. Four of the 11 derailed cars were tank cars containing tripropylene, hydrochloric acid, and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate. The derailed tank car containing tripropylene was punctured, and the escaping tripropylene ignited. The fire spread to the contents of several adjacent cars, creating heat, smoke, and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×

fumes that restricted access to the tunnel for several days. A 40-inch-diameter water main directly above the tunnel broke in the hours following the accident and flooded the tunnel with millions of gallons of water.

Consequence of Event: Five emergency responders sustained minor injuries while responding to the incident, but there were no deaths as a result of the event. Emergency operations in the City of Baltimore were occupied by the incident, and the north-south transportation corridor on the East Coast was disrupted for days. Total costs associated with the accident, including response and cleanup costs, were estimated at about $12 million.11


Location: Graniteville, South Carolina

Date of Event: January 2005

Chemical(s) involved: Chlorine

Event: Due to an improperly set switch, a 42-car train collided with a parked train. The accident led to the puncture of a tank car containing chlorine.

Consequence of Event: Nine people died as a result of exposure to chlorine; more than 250 were sent to the hospital, and 5,400 were evacuated.12


Location: Mississauga, Ontario

Date of Event: November 1979

Chemical(s) involved: Propane, styrene, chlorine, and caustic soda

Event: A Canadian Pacific train lost a wheel resulting in the derailment of 24 cars. Six of these cars separately contained propane, styrene, chlorine, caustic soda, and fiberglass insulation. The mixture of these chemicals caused an explosion that could be seen more than 100 km away and the mixture of chlorine and styrene, with sunlight as a catalyst, created mace.

Consequence of Event: Although there were no fatalities or serious injuries, approximately 250,000 residents were evacuated for almost a week.13

11  

National Transportation Safety Board. 2001. Railroad Accident Brief. Available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2004/RAB0408.pdf.

12  

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/83/i03/8303notw1.html.

13  

City of Mississauga. Train Derailment. Available at http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/cityhall/trainderailment.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Chemical Shortage Scenario

The following flu outbreaks provide a basis for assessing the magnitude of these events.

 

Date

Fatalities

Mortality Rate

Spanish flu (U.S.)

1918-1919

670,000

6.5/1,000

Asian flu (U.S.)

1957-1958

70,000

 

Normal year (U.S.)

 

36,000 (200,000 hospitalizations)

0.07/1,000

Misuse Scenario

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Date of Event: 1982

Substance(s) involved: Cyanide, Tylenol

Event: Seven people died as a result of taking Tylenol that had been contaminated with cyanide. A wave of copycat poisonings in the following years led to additional deaths.

Consequence of Event: To restore consumer confidence, new packaging procedures were implemented by all manufacturers. The Tylenol case was never solved. As a result, the company’s market value fell by $1 billion.14


Location: The Dalles, Oregon

Date of Event: 1984

Substance(s) involved: Salmonella typhimurium

Event: A series of restaurant salad bars were intentionally contaminated with S. typhimurium in an effort to affect the results of a local election.

Consequence of Event: Twelve percent of the town became ill and a third of the town’s restaurants were closed.


Location: On the East Coast

Date of Event: Fall 2001

Substance(s) involved: Anthrax

Event: Letters laced with the bacteria Bacillus anthracis, commonly known as anthrax, were mailed to two U.S. Senators and a variety of media outlets.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×

The anthrax attacks occurred over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001. The crime is suspected to be domestic and intended to frighten and raise public fear rather than kill large numbers of people.15 There were also occurrences of copycat letters being mailed. Contaminated sites were closed for cleanup ranging from three months to more than three and a half years. Estimated costs for decontamination of these sites were approximately $242.5 million.16

Consequence of Event: Five people were killed including two postal workers, a nurse, a Connecticut woman, and an American Media, Inc., worker. The crime remains unsolved.


Location: Belgium

Date of Event: June 1999

Substance(s) involved: Dioxin

Event: In June 1999 the Belgian government discovered that fat laced with dioxin—a carcinogenic by-product of the manufacture of some herbicides and pesticides—was used to make feed for poultry, pork, and cattle.

Consequence of Event: An initial ban on poultry resulted when some chickens showed levels of dioxin up to 1,000 times the accepted limits. Soon there was speculation that beef and pork could also be contaminated. Subsequently, the government withdrew all beef, pork, and poultry products from supermarkets throughout Belgium. Police went on alert to make sure no poultry, pigs, or cattle were slaughtered or transported anywhere and went from shop to shop to ensure that all contaminated food had been removed from the shelves. Other countries including Greece, Britain, France, Switzerland, Romania, and the United States imposed bans on imports of Belgian animal products. Russian health authorities also confiscated 20 tons of ground turkey because of fears of dioxin contamination. This had an almost immediate impact on jobs in the meat industry in Belgium where one company had to lay off 1,000 of its 1,200 workers. This crisis did not result in any injuries, and lab test results subsequently revealed inconsequential levels of dioxin in these foods.17

15  

http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f1a6_5.html.

16  

Kempter, Jeff. 2005. Update on Building Contamination. Presented to the National Academies’ Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology, April 26.

17  

Associated Press. 1999. What’s for dinner? In Belgium, not much.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 111
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 112
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 113
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 114
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 115
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 116
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 117
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A Historical Scenarios." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2006. Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11597.
×
Page 118
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The chemical sector is a key part of the national economy and has been designated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as one of 17 sectors comprising the nation's Critical Infrastructure. Although its products represent only 2 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, those products underpin most other manufactured goods. To assist DHS in characterizing and mitigating the vulnerabilities faced by the nation from the chemical industry, this study examines classes of chemicals and chemical processes that are critical to the nation's security, economy, and health. It identifies vulnerabilities and points of weakness in the supply chain for these chemicals and chemical processes; assesses the likely impact of a significant disruption in the supply chain; identifies actions to help prevent disruption in the supply chain and mitigate loss and injury should such disruption occur; identifies incentives and disincentives to preventative and mitigating actions; and recommends areas of scientific, engineering, and economic research and development. The report concludes that the consequences of a deliberate attack on the chemical infrastructure would be expected to be similar in nature to the accidents we have already experienced. Under limited circumstances, such an attack could cause catastrophic casualties and loss of life, but it would take several simultaneous events to cause catastrophic economic consequences. Poor communication could amplify societal response. Overall, the recommendations in this report emphasize the benefit of investments to improve emergency preparedness for and response to chemical events. They also highlight the potential to minimize the physical hazards through development of cost-effective, safer processes that reduce the volume, toxicity, or hazardous conditions under which chemicals are processed.

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