Hurricane Aftermath
Recommendations
As an industrial hygienist I would advise the incident commander that all the people involved in the mission first get basic safety and precaution training. This should be implemented by the safety supervisor who is the person responsible for programs and training. The incident commander is the person responsible for all aspect of an emergency response. Thus he should quickly develop an incident objective, manage the incident operation, apply resources, and be responsible over the people involved (King County, 2010).
The areas that should be covered in training include how to handle the split substances and the basic safety measures which should be conducted by the environmental manager and the technician. With ample training, the team and the cleaning workers can work with confidence because they have the general knowledge of the dangers. This ensures that there are no accidents resulting from the people on the site handling dangerous components. For instance a cleaner might mix chemicals that are explosive or flammable thus resulting to further accidents.
Concerns
There are concerns that must be addressed to ensure the team, together with the clean-up recovery workers is safe and successful in the mission. It is also paramount to plan for any unexpected incident that might come up in the process of the operation. Thus it is the responsibility of the industrial hygienist to ensure that everybody in the site is safe and all the requirements are in place. Some of the top concerns include:
Safety chemicals
There should also be enough supply of caustic soda (NaON) and water to neutralize the leaking chlorine because chlorine is rendered harmless by caustic soda and water. Chlorine is soluble in water and after reacting with caustic soda it becomes harmless to human beings. Thus as an industrial hygienist and the team leader it is paramount to take an industrial measure of ensuring the availability of enough water and caustic soda (Nambiar, 2011).
Flash lights
While accessing the affected area the team should use flash lights as their source of light. This is because flash lights cannot ignite any flammable gas or substance that might have spilled during the disaster. Flash lights are also very portable thus they can be carried even in the very interior of the rambles.
Medical emergencies
Unexpected medical requirements might happen during the operation. For instance a structure might collapse or a fire may start. This calls for specialized treatment tools to cater for the patients. It also requires availability and accessibility of fast and reliable means of transport to rush any emergency case to a place where they can get specialized attention, for instance a helicopter.
Building safety
As an industrial hygiene measure, it is important to have any building checked and declared safe before anyone can enter. This includes any building that might require demolition which should be done with the...
