We need to create a process safety management program for handling multiple CSB videos released in a short timespan. edit: Also make sure the gas detectors are in working condition/weren't disabled by a supervisor because they kept going off
As a 3D artist myself I must say that the quality of these animations is ridiculously good for the purpose they serve. Someone over there really loves his or her job.
I was about 10 minutes away from this building when it exploded. Never heard anything like it before in my life, the entire house shook and felt like an earthquake. I've been eagerly awaiting the results of this investigation. Great job guys.
I almost feel guilty thinking, "awesome, a new USCSB video!" because in a perfect world, these videos wouldn't even need to exist. As a layperson I've learned so much about how chemical plants etc operate thanks to these videos- I live close to where the Imperial Sugar explosion happened and remember how chaotic that day was.
Go have a look at what the requirements for the label on those drums is from OSHA and what a MSDS (material safety data sheet) contains. (Edit:. This label is what makes the drums different from one another.) Ask ANY Chemistry Teacher what the FIRST day of Class is Always about. Possibly the first WEEK because not one soul may be left behind. If someone doesn't understand the dangers involved, the rest of the class has a duty to help them. If we move to a full-time work environment from the couple hours a day lab time a student might get, this process doesn't carry over because only certain personnel at the plant NEED to be Certified by OSHA to give Safety Classes, not for the classes to be effective. Verification of lessons learned is not required.
In other countries these things don't happen over and over again without regulations changing. In the US this stuff happens all the time and literally noting changes. Industry just gets recommendations and no agency can even act on it. Libertarian wet dream and employees are the ones paying the ultimate cost.
@@SpencerDonahue ...Dude, go look up what is included on those labels, required by OSHA, that makes them different than each other. The phrase "nearly identical," in this video, is misleading. Not only are there English words that detail what is inside, as well as the reactions they might have with other substances, but then they go on to include colors, numbers, AND Pictures to convey those same ideas. This happened because ignorant laborers didn't put things away when they were done with them. Noone needs reform to KNOW BETTER. I say "ignorant" because if they had any idea of the dangers of mixing chemicals, they wouldn't be slobs on the job. The company hired people who hadn't had ANY classes in Chemistry to do Chemistry and supervisors who failed to correct any concerns about that. Chicagoland has some of the strictest building codes anywhere, because of it's experience with livestock, winter heating, nuclear testing, and a cow. This company didn't follow local codes to provide a safe work environment. Why? It probably has more to do with the parent company being owned by a hedge fund and Accountants are squeezing every last dime out of Waukegan, and their gas detectors. Companies don't want educated employees, and this is the outcome.
As a consumer of bulk silicone that was affected by the shortage this caused, I am thankful for videos like this to explain what exactly happened. These videos also act as an important reminder for us to review our safety protocols. Thank you for publishing these videos!
@@wildaceds I wonder how the CSB folk actually feel about having genuine Internet fanboys and fangirls? Still, I'm always going to be grateful to gain this knowledge. It's horrible we have to learn this way, but by God, I hope we DO learn. Even if it's some rando person that watches these vids and sees something similar about to happen and stops it.
actually that's not really true, some companies just refuse to add safety precautions even after disaster and laws are needed to either completely force them out of business or make them comply with regulations regardless of their willingness.
investigators are really into 3d scene scanning lately, have seen a lot of these in late NTSB reports so I bet it was done using these scanned sceneries
I was employed in a chemical plant when I graduated high school. We received absolutely no training. Fortunately I was a "geek" and understood a lot of the hazards of the materials we worked with and we only had one minor accident while I worked there. It was caused by the careless action of a co-worker who wouldn't listen to instructions. Fortunately no one was injured as a result. We worked with many substances that could have easily resulted in the deaths of one or more of us.
There's cases where just forgetting to add a chemical can be dangerous. An old chemical book I found described a method for making potassium prussate. If you forget to add the iron filings, you will have some hot, solid crystalline cyanide where you don't expect it. Given this, I'm sure there's more than the two ways I know of to accidentally make a chlorine bomb out of a vat.
Working in a chemical plant is a terrible place for people who can’t listen to instructions. Hopefully they switched to a career track where one mistake can’t kill a roomful of people
@@kailoveskitties: "Am I, as a manager, going to spend a large amount of money to deal with some remote risk, that is very unlikely to generate an accident in my year or two on my watch here?" So many great quotes to take from Anatomy of a Disaster, someone should have made a compilation of them!
@@fetchstixRHD I have seen many once great companys going down the drain after the original founder retired or died and it got either to their children which have grown up rich (and are incompetent and/or lazy, so the likely hire someone, but still interfere) or some industry conglomerate who wants to milk their success until they are dried out dead. They all went out of business in a matter of years. Have it been for mismanagement and just running out of money, losing customers because the quality dropped significantly or accidents/other scandals.
It's not that I look eagerly forward to seeing a notification from this channel, not exactly, because something awful had to happen for a video to be made... but I always look forward to watching these videos once a new one arrives. It's always as fascinating as it is sobering.
It's like attending a good history class. Sure, the Battle of Hastings was horrible, but that teacher is fun and does nice animations with good narration.
@@X786BBF I can't and won't deny it, but life's too short to try to be cool forever. (Kind of gets to be a farce once you've got gray hair coming in, anyway.)
As a non-American, I am quite surprised that the results of the investigations are "recommendations" rather than laws. I know that Americans are regulations adverse but people died.
@@YanickaQuiltit’s sort of complicated. The EPA and OSHA are some of the other agencies whose regulatory functions carry the force of law. There are state agencies too. Industry trade groups set the best practices standards for methods and safety. Both sets of groups can be pressured and influenced for the worse. Through their funding and who they end up hiring and firing for instance. The CSB is supposed to be outside of those pressures. They tell us what happened and what should and should not have happened. They leave it to everyone else to go from there. There are overlapping jurisdictions, duties, and responsibilities in the US regulatory system. Some of those things are at cross purposes or even contradictory. The CSB is the best bet to sort it out by showing what is wrong , without having to argue about everything else.
I feel like there might be a serious issue in the qualifications of any worker who sees ANYTHING unexpected spilling out of a tank while handling large volumes of chemicals and doesn’t by default assume that the spillage is hazardous. The fact that multiple workers reacted the same way suggests they were never trained at all beyond the basic steps required to mix the chemicals.
I mean, I doubt they thought it was harmless or safe. But recognising that its hazardous isn't the same as knowing what's wrong or how to fix it. The right answer in this case was 'run for your lives', but that's not always the proper thing to do.
A few behavioral safeguards could have helped to prevent this. 1. Product staging hygiene. This is done for inventory control as well as product identification and use. Unused product needs to be returned to the raw material warehouse area from where the product was sourced, and the quantity of remaining product documented. 2. Double verification of product. At the start of any production, the materials should be staged by one operator, and verified by another validated operator.
I don't think of this sort of hazard at all when it comes to silicones, they're generally very "friendly" chemicals with low toxicity and low flammability, prized for their stability and inertness. All the more reason these workers needed specific training to recognize it wasn't just a polymer goo cleanup they had to deal with.
Though great notice many times this process is shorthanded by companies looking to cut corners. So that secondary validation check by another worker might get the axe. A better process would be ensuring all chemicals are stored in separate color or shaped containers if not both. That way they can be quickly identified removing the chance of error and making the labeling of the container easier to read from a distance.
What I've learned from the CSB is 1) have common sense and make sure you know the dangers of what you're working with, don't depend on your company to tell you. 2) if you see a dense fog forming while some chemical is leaking, RUN.
To an extent, a decent company will assume that operators who don't have engineering or chemistry training are prone to making errors. I've seen facilities assume one in thousand times you do it, you'll do it wrong. Which seems good, but if you do it twice a day, that's every year and a half. It's not that they are stupid, it's that everyone makes mistakes.
@@letsburn00 yeah but there are certain fields where mistakes CANNOT be made because they will be deadly. This is one of those. That's why there's rules, regulations and checklists in place to remove the human error part. Think about if you had surgery and the surgeon accidentally cuts an artery, you bleed out and die and they had to revive you and give you blood then they say "yeah sorry, we made a mistake". There's no room for error in some fields.
@@youngeshmoney Yeah, that's why LOPA analysis is used industrially so much. Reduction to things like once every 10,000 years for semi random chance is also cross protective. What's funny here is they talk about procedures. I personally feel procedures aren't a very effect protection layer. Funny thing about your surgeon analogy. If you look at the best surgeon on earth, who can do difficult surgeries without negative effects and has very high success rates, That guy is the actual baseline. The level that the other surgeons are at is the baseline plus human error. That all said, the last 2.5 years have proven to me that 80% of people have no clue how risk analysis works. But then again, if it was simple and intuitive, I wouldn't have a job.
Slight correction. Hydrogen gas does not fog like the video shows. That was put in to inform the viewer. The only way the workers could have known was a slight shortness of breath. Unfortunately they would have had a similar effect from sprinting to their colleague.
You guys are my favorite government agency. I work in manufacturing and share these with my whole company when a new one drops. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
@@caesiumm I'll come clean I was having fun at the expense of a town hit by disaster. No trees were harmed in the making of this video or comment section. You guys are fun, which means you get the China for a plate at my home!
I'm a ChemE student and these videos are amazing! Thank you for posting! It is important for those on the job and learning to understand and comprehend these types of videos.
Reminds me of the other week when someone called into the place where I work and told me that they had a hydraulic hose spraying hydraulic fluid and it was creating a fog that filled a room full of high voltage equipment and was coming all the way down the hallway. I told my supervisor that it was an explosion risk and they just shrugged it off. "Just say the liability script and then you're good"... I still regret not telling the customer to call the FD and evacuate immediately. Luckily, nothing ended up happening but I couldn't sleep that night just thinking of what could have happened.
Fascinating Horror's most recent video was exactly that scenario but with the bad outcome (and much worse due to many cut corners and bad decisions by management)
@@sauercrowder fuck dude I know this feeling. I remember always warning my fellow security guards that "the company doesn't give a shit about you, you could be murdered on shift and they wouldn't change shit" and they would shrug it off. Well guess what? One of our own guards was murdered (at another site on the other side of the country) and some of them STILL don't give a shit. Honestly at this point I kinda wish it happens to them too, as their dues for being shitfucks when it comes to actual safe working conditions.
I'm really admiring Ms Vincent's "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed" vibe This incident is particularly disappointing! The lack of safeguards - or really, safety culture - is just appalling. Did they never even consider what would happen if you spilled the contents of two drums of these materials??
"Well, we aren't going to spill [chemical]! Only someone bad at their job would spill it. Are you saying you're bad at your job?" I have been told this too many times when pointing out safety hazards in workplaces. The lack of safety culture is endemic through so many industries.
Probably not too much on an oopsie on the floor scale, this is the sort of incompatibility that requires multiple full drums being mixed vigorously to cause a dangerous reaction.
I"m so thankful for the US CSB and these videos. It is one thing to produce a report, but these videos are an extremely effective means for the CSB to educate workers and citizens on how to proactively identify and repair lacking safeguards.
@USCSB Thank you for such top notch safety productions! Question, do you have the Georgia poultry plant nitrogen leak in the works? I believe it happened in Jan 2021.
Thank you for the question. Yes, the CSB's investigation into the January 28, 2021, liquid nitrogen release at the Foundation Food Group’s Prepared Foods Division in Gainesville, GA, is currently underway.
I love the fan base for the United States Chemical Safety Board is made up of excited, yet somber viewers. Like, I work in real estate and failed chemistry, but I got my notifications on for new updates! 🧑🔬
There are great lessons to learn in all of these reports that can apply to non-industry contexts. It's all about preventative problem solving, learning to look at a situation and automatically think, "Ok, before I get too deep into this, what could go wrong here?" Most of the CSB reports point out things that seem painfully obvious in retrospect. It is totally worth taking that extra bit of thought at the beginning, instead of beating yourself up for having missed the obvious after it's too late.
Admin for the NHS here... yep fascinated by stuff like this. At work for example we have different coloured bags for different levels of hazardous waste (from bog standard black domestic bags, to red for infectious stuff), different colours of mops and cloths for cleaning different types of spills. Different coloured medical bins for sharps or medication destruction etc. First thing I saw in this was 'how do you tell the difference of which chemical is in which drum?' Even before they got into the explanation of what happened in detail.
We can never really say "Yay, another CSB video!" because it almost always means somebody died...but yay, another CSB video. Very interesting and educational even for those of us who don't work in heavy industry.
Not necessarily. There was that one story in Wisconsin where a bunch of asphalt leaked at a factory but the first responders had trained with the company and nobody ended up dying. They even stopped the leak and put the fire out in the same day. In fact, it was the best possible outcome given the scenario.
Earlier this week I had a tyre patched at a tire kingdom shop. The shop sent a young kid ( maybe 20 y/o) w just a floor jack, no jack stands, no wheel chocks, to lift and work under my 7000lb truck. I took photos and informed the local manager and corporate. Also I called OSHA. As of 72 hrs later no one has shown any interest in the problem. Guess we just have to wait until someone loses life or limb. Very sad.
I used to work Merchant's now Tire Kingdom they don't give a shit about safety and didn't care that we needed new equipment my store manager almost had his head smashed from a tire after he got it on the rim went to put air in it to set the bead and when the bead set the whole tire came flying off the tire machine
@@Merker367 I know ive seen some pretty stupid shit when I was in the shop guys not putting lift on locks to service manager getting his leg cut open when he opened the bay door and the glass fell out of the door
If you're just doing a tire and you're not under the vehicle you're fine. I mean, might fuck your brake rotors up a bit if it falls, but thats it What kind of truck do you have that weighs 7000 lbs? F250 or equivalent?
@@RVBJohn ok so a shop drops your car on it's rotors and bends up the shields and your supposed to be ok with that? No matter if someone's under the vehicle or not, always use stands
Here's a little deeper understanding of the actual chemical reaction that caused the explosion (from csb.gov): The "XL 10" mentioned is a methylhydrogensiloxane and dimethylsiloxane copolymer. When mixed with a KOH/water mixture, the KOH catalyzes a reaction with water and XL 10 to produce large amounts of hydrogen gas.
@@VintageTechFan I'm no expert on this particular process but my theory is that the KOH for pH correction was added to finished product whereas the accident KOH was added to an unreacted ingredient. It's definitely possible that the finished product has totally different properties than the "pure XL 10" precursor. I'm drawing on my experience with adhesives manufacture which is similar but different.
Adding KOH to either the XL10 or the product can produce H2 (I may have seen that fact in an article I read on this accident). Since pH balancing the finished product seems like it was a routine process, I am guessing that it produces MUCH less H2 and/or more slowly, so you can get away with it if you do it afterwards. Polymers tend to be relatively unreactive. Analogous to tossing a match onto a pile of flour as opposed to into a cloud of flour dust.... I've been involved with laboratory safety for many years; making it difficult (or better, damned near impossible) to accidentally have incompatible chemicals come in contact with another is a big area of concern. Coincidentally, I was once a quality lab chemist in a plant with a process that could easily have created a large smoking hole in the ground. I was glad to move on from that one!
@@corydalus981 rewatching the video it seems as if the night shift added waay too much KOH to the process. The proper amount probably releases a managable amount of H2, but they added too much.
I get so excited when you post new videos. This is one branch of the government that has actually not let me down the past 2 years. USCSB is amazing, and saves lives preventing future accidents. I wish I could give more praise to the people behind posting and creating these videos. Keep up the good work team. I want more of my tax dollars sent here.
I used to pass this facility daily and used to live 10 minutes away from here. I was working at the fire department when the explosion occurred and felt it shake the doors 15 miles away. Some of my coworkers responded there. One of the victim's families created a memorial scholarship at our department for him
These are always entertaining AND educational. Like Mayday or Forensic Files but for hazardous chemicals, instead of airplanes, or married men you just told you were pregnant at night in a truck in a parking lot
Don't forget Seconds From Disaster, where they tell the viewers how things went wrong. Heck, even the Deepwater Horizon and Texas City were shown on it
Are you from Canada? I noticed in other countries they call the show 'Mayday', Airplane Disasters. I love Mayday and Foremsic Files, I've been watching both since 2005.
@@decepticonsretreat where do you stream it? i’ve just been watching the one with the british narrator on youtube but i really prefer the canadian narrator
I am just happy that these videos are finally getting recognition. I tried spreading them way back in 2014 to no avail. I don't know why they became popular all of a sudden.
My daughter went to school with one of the men who were killed. He survived but passed away a short time later. He left behind a wife and children. So, so sad. My heart breaks for them. I grew up in that area. I remember when they built that plant. Such a tragedy.
Thank you for another informative, interesting, engaging video. These are extremely valuable, not just for people in the related industry or industries, but also for people in completely different fields, as a reminder to know and care about safety measures and procedures. As always, perfectly well done!
I couldn’t do that job. I’d be too upset to make a professional testimony: I’d be like “These mother***ers didn’t have an alarm, a ventilation system, a gas detector, training for the workers, or common fu**king sense to label the reactive chemicals in a different color container. 4 people have tragically perished because the management is deadly incompetence personified”.
I really feel as if these videos are a massive public service, since I found this channel I’ve watched most of the acciedent reports and thoroughly enjoyed (maybe not the right word considering the unfortunate circumstances surrounding these videos) but nonetheless I really feel there is a lot of value in these. It really makes me aware of how complacency, ignorance, and inadequate planning/procedures can cause fatalities. As someone who is training to be a pilot I feel it’s very important for me and my peers to understand WHY fatal accidents happen from not just a technical perspective but also a human one. Thank you CSB for the informative videos.
This is so sad. I was on a road not far from there when it happened and saw the explosion. The explosion could be felt 16 miles away and took out some power. It’s nice to hear some closure about what happened.
CSB videos are great! Having lived through a much smaller hydrogen explosion, I can testify that having people aware of the possibility of such an event is half the battle...
Greetings from Ireland. Great video, very well put together! Brilliant shared learnings, thank you keep great work coming! Love this channel as a EHS advisor it’s very useful!
As soon as I saw the mixup and how it occurred, I was thinking "Why can't the drums be different colors?". We've used some of these principles outlined in these videos at home and in the workshop. For example, the bleach is in a physically different cabinet than other, incompatible cleaning solutions such as ammonia solution. Likewise, we keep hydrocarbon products like spray paint and automotive chemicals in yet another couple areas, divided up so the entire supply doesn't catch fire should ignition occur.
Blue drums are industry standard for a lot of bulk chemicals. You can , theoretically, get custom stuff but that is additional costs and delays. And there are thousands of chemicals and infinite combinations of them. We have KOH in IBCs and it looks like every other IBC on a warehouse. I would be interested in a detailed video, and/or analysis, about a production facility that does this right. Second of all, materials like KOH are very dangerous and it should be illegal to sell them in the same containers as any other material (but with a sticker!). But that is jut me I guess.
the drums are a standard bulk container and it wasn't clear if they were being reused inside the plant or not. however a good way to deal with this is to simply have your receiving (or loading if dealing with internal reuse) department put a band around the barrel, could be as simple as a colored band or as complex as a laser cut sign depending on the needs of the individual plant, once empty the band would be removed.
Likewise, these additional mixed chemicals should have the amount needed measured out into a separate container and then the excess put back in the storage
@@DWPL89 I think my idea for an in house band or sign that gets installed on all containers as soon as they are brought in would deal with your problem as well, if the bean counters don't like the idea find out how much a single mix up of those IBCs would cost, I'm sure anything form a few thousand to a few million if something like what happens in the video happens.
I was walking down the street a block away when this happened. I felt the shockwave from the explosion; it was insane. I've been eagerly waiting for the results of this investigation.
I know these videos are meant to be more in line with things like training videos, but they also show that having good production values make them quite good as edutainment or whatever you want to call it. This is how any video meant to educate should be done.... this is the kind of thing that people actually pay attention to, which is precisely what you want in educational or training videos (or similar).
My brother has worked in the chemical industry for years .. i worry about his safety everyday even though he speaks of endless safety meetings and protocols.. it onky takes one careless mistake, fatigue, rushing etc, to not come home. Eggcellent video as Mr. Burns would say.
Are these videos considered fair use or creative commons? I'd like to use this in my communications class, since I teach trades students it's very relevant. This is a good example of how effective communication can prevent accidents.
Thank you for your interest in CSB safety videos. All CSB safety videos are in the public domain. We encourage you to use the videos for educational purposes but do ask that you please provide attribution to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
We still use USCSB's hot work video in new employee training. 👍 I actually just randomly came across their TH-cam channel today and now I'm binge watching.
My windows were shattered just a few miles away. I went to high school in the area. Seeing the CSB helmets around the site and area is what introduced me to this channel
Been following this channel for years, always great stuff (in terms of content made, not tragedies that happen). The animation also seems to have really made improvements recently, kudos to you guys, well done.
Thanks, this type of accident is all too common. Had a very minor incident myself when water found its way into a drum containing small amounts of acetic anhydride(which is extremely reactive), the drum had not been completely emptied and was then used for tank washings. Fortunately no one was hurt, but it was scary.
I mean, you can see the aftermath. It blew out the whole factory, down to the framework What made this all the worse, it would seem, is that instead of dumping the hydrogen outside, the ventilation system mixed it thoroughly with the internal atmosphere, turning the upper stories into a huge fuel-air bomb.
i came here to say this! the first overheard shot of the building dag gone near looked like it was real, and i swear i know 3 dudes who look just like those cg dudes!
This is where it pays to have a system where each chemical has a barcode and you scan it in before adding it. The computer then checks and makes sure that chemical is on the recipe. If done correctly it provides a "second set of eyes" and helps prevent simple mistakes that as in this case turn out to be deadly. It also keeps you from spoiling batches & wasting chemicals.
I'm curious who narrates these videos. Whoever they are, they're certainly the right person for the job - their voice positively _radiates_ knowledge and authority.
So what was the punishment for this company's negligence? It seems they knew there were problems with their safety procedures and employee training, but chose to ignore it. I'm guessing it was a mediocre fine and a only civil lawsuit?
as someone with a very elementary understanding of chemistry, just the name "potassium hydroxide" sounds dangerous as fuck. potassium = boom, hydrogen = boom, oxygen = fire and more boom edit: for fucks sake, same colored drums for the same compounds?
I mean tbh, the hazard is really the volume of the chemicals used. Lots and lots of chemicals can produce hydrogen when mixed, that's very common. The company should have had a general chemical hazard control program that would have applied to this. There really isn't any gap in the regulation as far as I know, they just didn't do what they're supposed to. Just look at the fact that they had gas detectors but that they were non-functional. I guess what I'm saying is, these chemicals really aren't especially hazardous but there should have been a program in place to identify and prevent the kinds of issues that occurred and it should have been audited.
@@sauercrowder As I understand it, gas detectors at that facility had very short life spans because of the particular types of products produced there. Arguably, they should have instituted regular testing and replacement, but it's easy to let that kind of thing slip when there's noone checking up on you regularly, telling you that you have to do it.
@@technoturnovers7072 That's not quite how chemistry works. Potassium Chloride sound very dangerous. Potassium = Boom, Chlorine = Deadly. When in actual fact it's sea salt ( or at least a major component of it) and people eat it every day.
It's maddening to think that despite the decades of accidents caused by companies simply neglecting basic and common-sense safety procedures, similar accidents are still happening today.
Having received training and certification in both hazardous materials safety and occupational health and safety, it saddens me to see that these videos have to be made. That being said, knowing we can take the lessons learned from these terrible incidents and hopefully bring us that much closer to zero makes work like what you're doing all the more worthwhile. Kudos, CSB
As much as this may seem like a morbid fascination to look forward to these videos, I work as an industrial electrician. So for me, these high quality videos have actually made me *more* aware of hazards and my working environments when on the job.
This is tangent: You see this? A dispassionate summary of an event followed by a detailed explanation with causes and solutions? This is how the news should be reported. No angry rants. No ideologies. Just the actual facts.
The number of combinations of reactive hazards are unlimited. Trying to limit them are important but having safeguards in place to detect them might be even more important.
The potential number of reactive hazards aren't 'unlimited'; they're specifically limited by the number of different chemicals that a facility has on hand. A well developed safety program would include, at a minimum, identifying the potential 'worst case scenario' reactions, and having appropriate mitigative measures in place. Detecting a dangerous reaction after it has begun, is certainly not a better solution than avoiding those reactions in the first place.
@@historyteacher5821 I agree. But accidents still happen. It is sort of like the code and the fire department. We have codes to minimize hazards. But try as we may, we still have the fire department because accidents happen.
Thanks to the USCSB for another well presented and very educational safety video. As a taxpayer and consumer of the end items many of these processes support, your highlighting opportunities for industries to improve their practices to save lives and the environment are much appreciated and a great value for the dollars spent. This is free education and information for industry. Preventing accidents and harm to employees costs many, many times less than dealing with the consequences of ignoring dangers inherent in so many day-to-day processes we all take for granted. I wish more companies would apply this logic when it comes to maintaining and operating work place hazard reduction programs.
I used to work at a chemical factory and let me tell you, when the alarm went off once people sprinted for their lives to get out of the building. Turns out some asshat pulled the alarm and was caught on camera, but those people understood the danger very well. Ever since this incident, I can clearly see why now.
These videos are always very informative and extremely well done. I like watching them but quite often people lose their lives or are seriously injured. I’d be ok to never see another video if it meant nobody was hurt or killed anymore and company’s were following safety standards.
Gotta say if it hasn't yet, gotta love how our taxes go toward things such as this. Makes me grateful that some of the money is going towards something good
First rule of vapor clouds... If you see one forming, exit the area immediately. I'm not being flip or putting down the people who died. This is basic hazmat training, if you work with chemicals, you should be trained in this; "when in doubt, evacuate." Doesn't seem like they were, unfortunately.
This seems to be a common thread in these incidents (see the Ghent gas station explosion). And in a lot of unnecessary deaths and injuries in other disasters (specifically wildfires, mass shooters etc etc) - "when in doubt, GET OUT" is the golden rule of *staying alive.* The most being the first to the exits and very far away will cause is some inconvenience or embarrassment or maybe lost money. Staying out of uncertainty can cost you horrible injuries or your life. That fire up in the hills *can* be on you in five minutes with bad winds. Those pops/booms aren't firecrackers or whatever else your brain tells you they are. That gas cloud should be assumed to be explosive, toxic, or some horrific combination of the two - and shouldn't be there in the first place. GET. OUT.
@@questionablebackyardmeows The issue for a lot of these is an inability to recognize dangers due to poor/zero safety training. Reminds me of a Feynmann story on the Manhattan project - workers were storing uranium slurry, and when asked by the inspecting physicists if they weren't worried that stacking the barrels as they were doing could cause an explosion, the workers responded, "huh? EXPLODE?" At least that had secrecy guidelines as an excuse, this is just negligence.
As someone who is going for emergency management, these videos are really interesting and highlight the need for hazardous materials incident planning.
this narrator is legendary 😁i probably said that already, but he's just perfect voice for such documentaries. Mr Smith, thank you, you're doing a great job and making this documentaries even more enjoyable🙏🏻❤️👌🏻cheers from Slovakia
Two CSB videos in a month? Impossible, the air must be contaminated.
I look forward to the CSB report on this contamination in the coming months.
I didn't even realize there was a first recent one!
Perhaps we should evacuate
Is it bad that i want more chemical disasters so they get more funding and make more videos lol
We need to create a process safety management program for handling multiple CSB videos released in a short timespan.
edit: Also make sure the gas detectors are in working condition/weren't disabled by a supervisor because they kept going off
As a 3D artist myself I must say that the quality of these animations is ridiculously good for the purpose they serve.
Someone over there really loves his or her job.
They probably 3d model industrial sites and do accident re-enactments as a side job.
dude. i am watching this from the netherlands. learning how to stay safe
Federal gov probably wasted million dollars making this video
@@J12345cats : Saving lives through education is something you can't agree with, I see.
@@J12345cats hur dur gubmint bad
I was about 10 minutes away from this building when it exploded. Never heard anything like it before in my life, the entire house shook and felt like an earthquake. I've been eagerly awaiting the results of this investigation. Great job guys.
I live about 25 hours away and I heard it on TH-cam.
Were you around for the propane explosion down the street, a few years earlier?
You're miles away and it shook your house, yet a guy who was working there survived the explosion.
Pretty lucky for him, I guess.
I live a few blocks away and it shook my building
@@jimmydesouza4375 4 people died
I almost feel guilty thinking, "awesome, a new USCSB video!" because in a perfect world, these videos wouldn't even need to exist. As a layperson I've learned so much about how chemical plants etc operate thanks to these videos- I live close to where the Imperial Sugar explosion happened and remember how chaotic that day was.
I thought the same lol 😢
Go have a look at what the requirements for the label on those drums is from OSHA and what a MSDS (material safety data sheet) contains.
(Edit:. This label is what makes the drums different from one another.)
Ask ANY Chemistry Teacher what the FIRST day of Class is Always about. Possibly the first WEEK because not one soul may be left behind. If someone doesn't understand the dangers involved, the rest of the class has a duty to help them.
If we move to a full-time work environment from the couple hours a day lab time a student might get, this process doesn't carry over because only certain personnel at the plant NEED to be Certified by OSHA to give Safety Classes, not for the classes to be effective. Verification of lessons learned is not required.
In other countries these things don't happen over and over again without regulations changing. In the US this stuff happens all the time and literally noting changes. Industry just gets recommendations and no agency can even act on it. Libertarian wet dream and employees are the ones paying the ultimate cost.
@@SpencerDonahue ...Dude, go look up what is included on those labels, required by OSHA, that makes them different than each other.
The phrase "nearly identical," in this video, is misleading.
Not only are there English words that detail what is inside, as well as the reactions they might have with other substances, but then they go on to include colors, numbers, AND Pictures to convey those same ideas.
This happened because ignorant laborers didn't put things away when they were done with them. Noone needs reform to KNOW BETTER.
I say "ignorant" because if they had any idea of the dangers of mixing chemicals, they wouldn't be slobs on the job.
The company hired people who hadn't had ANY classes in Chemistry to do Chemistry and supervisors who failed to correct any concerns about that.
Chicagoland has some of the strictest building codes anywhere, because of it's experience with livestock, winter heating, nuclear testing, and a cow.
This company didn't follow local codes to provide a safe work environment. Why?
It probably has more to do with the parent company being owned by a hedge fund and Accountants are squeezing every last dime out of Waukegan, and their gas detectors.
Companies don't want educated employees, and this is the outcome.
I love these videos and dearly hope that they get made about less and less severe incidents over time because that's what's left to handle.
As a consumer of bulk silicone that was affected by the shortage this caused, I am thankful for videos like this to explain what exactly happened. These videos also act as an important reminder for us to review our safety protocols. Thank you for publishing these videos!
This. It’s actually been a very good way to explain and inform people. Wish this channel was a bit larger.
@@aandyherr817 help spread awareness of this channel and improve safety and their popularity in one go :)
4 died at the accident. unsure if we should thank this.
:( I hope you had something to eat during the shortage
Do you use bulk silicone for your dildo collection?
New USCSB Videos: When "Yay!" and "Oh, no" cross paths.
Through tragedy, we learn. Thanks to the CSB for presenting this information to the public.
@@wildaceds I wonder how the CSB folk actually feel about having genuine Internet fanboys and fangirls?
Still, I'm always going to be grateful to gain this knowledge. It's horrible we have to learn this way, but by God, I hope we DO learn. Even if it's some rando person that watches these vids and sees something similar about to happen and stops it.
actually that's not really true, some companies just refuse to add safety precautions even after disaster and laws are needed to either completely force them out of business or make them comply with regulations regardless of their willingness.
@@ChristopherGray00 ..wut?
I didn't say anything about regulations, I said "learn." As in, the general public learns.
Usually we learn way before tragedy but due to ego and greed nothing changes until tragedy occours
Amazing how detailed the 3d model of the destroyed factory is. Almost missed the switch to real pictures.
Dude driving by it looked unreal. Twisted metal is a sight to behold
Their animations are really excellent
This was your take
investigators are really into 3d scene scanning lately, have seen a lot of these in late NTSB reports so I bet it was done using these scanned sceneries
@@ShitHappensRLY much easier to do now we have these tasty little drones.
I was employed in a chemical plant when I graduated high school. We received absolutely no training. Fortunately I was a "geek" and understood a lot of the hazards of the materials we worked with and we only had one minor accident while I worked there. It was caused by the careless action of a co-worker who wouldn't listen to instructions. Fortunately no one was injured as a result. We worked with many substances that could have easily resulted in the deaths of one or more of us.
There's cases where just forgetting to add a chemical can be dangerous. An old chemical book I found described a method for making potassium prussate. If you forget to add the iron filings, you will have some hot, solid crystalline cyanide where you don't expect it. Given this, I'm sure there's more than the two ways I know of to accidentally make a chlorine bomb out of a vat.
Working in a chemical plant is a terrible place for people who can’t listen to instructions. Hopefully they switched to a career track where one mistake can’t kill a roomful of people
@@oron61 Noting to myself not to get on your bad side. Nah jk lolz
fume hood ftw doing any reaction in a closed space openly filling the room with any type of gas should be a red flag
@@oron61 does it give off fumes on contact in air?
A lesson that needs to be beaten into the business world:
"You think safety's expensive? Try an accident."
“You know these two highly reactive chemicals we have? Lets put them next to each other in identical containers” 🤦🏻♂️
“Yeah, but I’ll probably have sold my stock in the company by the time the accident occurs”
@@_zigzak company "we can save $5 a barrel if we just use the same color barrel for everything!"
@@kailoveskitties: "Am I, as a manager, going to spend a large amount of money to deal with some remote risk, that is very unlikely to generate an accident in my year or two on my watch here?"
So many great quotes to take from Anatomy of a Disaster, someone should have made a compilation of them!
@@fetchstixRHD I have seen many once great companys going down the drain after the original founder retired or died and it got either to their children which have grown up rich (and are incompetent and/or lazy, so the likely hire someone, but still interfere) or some industry conglomerate who wants to milk their success until they are dried out dead.
They all went out of business in a matter of years. Have it been for mismanagement and just running out of money, losing customers because the quality dropped significantly or accidents/other scandals.
I am a biology/chemistry major. I really appreciate how well everything is always explained in these videos. These videos save lives 100%
It's not that I look eagerly forward to seeing a notification from this channel, not exactly, because something awful had to happen for a video to be made... but I always look forward to watching these videos once a new one arrives. It's always as fascinating as it is sobering.
yay a new video!
oh no, a new video
cringe
It's like attending a good history class. Sure, the Battle of Hastings was horrible, but that teacher is fun and does nice animations with good narration.
@@X786BBF I can't and won't deny it, but life's too short to try to be cool forever. (Kind of gets to be a farce once you've got gray hair coming in, anyway.)
@@leewilder2896 You stealing the comment that is literally the top voted comment on all videos by csb is not you pretending to be cool and original?
I run a chemical mfg group and these videos get presented to the team throughout the year. Invaluable for training and discussion.
I wish the company I work for would sit us down and make us learn from these.
As a firefighter, I also learn from every firefighter death.
As a non-American, I am quite surprised that the results of the investigations are "recommendations" rather than laws. I know that Americans are regulations adverse but people died.
@@YanickaQuiltit’s sort of complicated. The EPA and OSHA are some of the other agencies whose regulatory functions carry the force of law. There are state agencies too. Industry trade groups set the best practices standards for methods and safety. Both sets of groups can be pressured and influenced for the worse. Through their funding and who they end up hiring and firing for instance.
The CSB is supposed to be outside of those pressures. They tell us what happened and what should and should not have happened. They leave it to everyone else to go from there.
There are overlapping jurisdictions, duties, and responsibilities in the US regulatory system. Some of those things are at cross purposes or even contradictory. The CSB is the best bet to sort it out by showing what is wrong , without having to argue about everything else.
When the CSB says, “Reiterate” you know someone messed up.
Nothing pisses me off more than people dying at work 😢
I feel like there might be a serious issue in the qualifications of any worker who sees ANYTHING unexpected spilling out of a tank while handling large volumes of chemicals and doesn’t by default assume that the spillage is hazardous. The fact that multiple workers reacted the same way suggests they were never trained at all beyond the basic steps required to mix the chemicals.
I mean, I doubt they thought it was harmless or safe. But recognising that its hazardous isn't the same as knowing what's wrong or how to fix it. The right answer in this case was 'run for your lives', but that's not always the proper thing to do.
A few behavioral safeguards could have helped to prevent this.
1. Product staging hygiene. This is done for inventory control as well as product identification and use. Unused product needs to be returned to the raw material warehouse area from where the product was sourced, and the quantity of remaining product documented.
2. Double verification of product. At the start of any production, the materials should be staged by one operator, and verified by another validated operator.
I don't think of this sort of hazard at all when it comes to silicones, they're generally very "friendly" chemicals with low toxicity and low flammability, prized for their stability and inertness. All the more reason these workers needed specific training to recognize it wasn't just a polymer goo cleanup they had to deal with.
If you don't think to run then its your time
Though great notice many times this process is shorthanded by companies looking to cut corners. So that secondary validation check by another worker might get the axe. A better process would be ensuring all chemicals are stored in separate color or shaped containers if not both. That way they can be quickly identified removing the chance of error and making the labeling of the container easier to read from a distance.
What I've learned from the CSB is 1) have common sense and make sure you know the dangers of what you're working with, don't depend on your company to tell you.
2) if you see a dense fog forming while some chemical is leaking, RUN.
To an extent, a decent company will assume that operators who don't have engineering or chemistry training are prone to making errors. I've seen facilities assume one in thousand times you do it, you'll do it wrong. Which seems good, but if you do it twice a day, that's every year and a half.
It's not that they are stupid, it's that everyone makes mistakes.
@@letsburn00 yeah but there are certain fields where mistakes CANNOT be made because they will be deadly. This is one of those. That's why there's rules, regulations and checklists in place to remove the human error part. Think about if you had surgery and the surgeon accidentally cuts an artery, you bleed out and die and they had to revive you and give you blood then they say "yeah sorry, we made a mistake". There's no room for error in some fields.
@@youngeshmoney Yeah, that's why LOPA analysis is used industrially so much. Reduction to things like once every 10,000 years for semi random chance is also cross protective. What's funny here is they talk about procedures. I personally feel procedures aren't a very effect protection layer.
Funny thing about your surgeon analogy. If you look at the best surgeon on earth, who can do difficult surgeries without negative effects and has very high success rates, That guy is the actual baseline. The level that the other surgeons are at is the baseline plus human error.
That all said, the last 2.5 years have proven to me that 80% of people have no clue how risk analysis works. But then again, if it was simple and intuitive, I wouldn't have a job.
Slight correction. Hydrogen gas does not fog like the video shows. That was put in to inform the viewer.
The only way the workers could have known was a slight shortness of breath. Unfortunately they would have had a similar effect from sprinting to their colleague.
You guys are my favorite government agency. I work in manufacturing and share these with my whole company when a new one drops. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thanks to the entirety of the USCSB for their investigations and the animators who make these amazing videos!
Whoever does the video simulations for these incidents is top notch.
This one hits home for me. I felt the shockwave through the floor joists in my house and heard all of the plates rattle in my cabinets…
Same here, except we only use paper plates so I didn't notice those make any noises.
@@deelanders6132 Jesus, the forests! 🌲
@@deelanders6132 perfect comment
@@deelanders6132 this may or may not have been a joke but I must say it was very funny
@@caesiumm I'll come clean I was having fun at the expense of a town hit by disaster. No trees were harmed in the making of this video or comment section. You guys are fun, which means you get the China for a plate at my home!
I'm a ChemE student and these videos are amazing! Thank you for posting! It is important for those on the job and learning to understand and comprehend these types of videos.
Reminds me of the other week when someone called into the place where I work and told me that they had a hydraulic hose spraying hydraulic fluid and it was creating a fog that filled a room full of high voltage equipment and was coming all the way down the hallway. I told my supervisor that it was an explosion risk and they just shrugged it off. "Just say the liability script and then you're good"... I still regret not telling the customer to call the FD and evacuate immediately. Luckily, nothing ended up happening but I couldn't sleep that night just thinking of what could have happened.
There's also the addition of hydraulic fluid injection injuries
What on earth do you do for a living that you got that call and the only thing your boss would let you do is recite a liability script?!
And because nothing happened, now you're an alarmist
Fascinating Horror's most recent video was exactly that scenario but with the bad outcome (and much worse due to many cut corners and bad decisions by management)
@@sauercrowder fuck dude I know this feeling. I remember always warning my fellow security guards that "the company doesn't give a shit about you, you could be murdered on shift and they wouldn't change shit" and they would shrug it off. Well guess what? One of our own guards was murdered (at another site on the other side of the country) and some of them STILL don't give a shit. Honestly at this point I kinda wish it happens to them too, as their dues for being shitfucks when it comes to actual safe working conditions.
I'm really admiring Ms Vincent's "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed" vibe
This incident is particularly disappointing! The lack of safeguards - or really, safety culture - is just appalling. Did they never even consider what would happen if you spilled the contents of two drums of these materials??
"Well, we aren't going to spill [chemical]! Only someone bad at their job would spill it. Are you saying you're bad at your job?"
I have been told this too many times when pointing out safety hazards in workplaces. The lack of safety culture is endemic through so many industries.
Partly I think this was caused by the company’s decision to issue process orders without having their workers understanding the processes.
She was just reading a script. She didn't actually understand any of it, lol. She was probably thinking about sweet potatoes.
@@Connection-Lost Go take your racist stereotypes elsewhere.
Probably not too much on an oopsie on the floor scale, this is the sort of incompatibility that requires multiple full drums being mixed vigorously to cause a dangerous reaction.
These are always so well-presented.
Bot
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I"m so thankful for the US CSB and these videos. It is one thing to produce a report, but these videos are an extremely effective means for the CSB to educate workers and citizens on how to proactively identify and repair lacking safeguards.
I'd just like to appreciate the narrator for having an absolutely amazing and captivating voice, thank you for your hard work in keeping us informed.
Only one Sheldon!
I wish he would read my school work to me.
He could narrate boiling an egg and it would be intense to listen to
@@kenosabi He probably could but it might take a while to get to it.
@@comcfi He was like the English president (Breslin?) of years ago. A voice that always stood out.
@USCSB Thank you for such top notch safety productions! Question, do you have the Georgia poultry plant nitrogen leak in the works? I believe it happened in Jan 2021.
Thank you for the question. Yes, the CSB's investigation into the January 28, 2021, liquid nitrogen release at the Foundation Food Group’s Prepared Foods Division in Gainesville, GA, is currently underway.
I love the fan base for the United States Chemical Safety Board is made up of excited, yet somber viewers. Like, I work in real estate and failed chemistry, but I got my notifications on for new updates! 🧑🔬
Registered nurse, and daughter of a firefighter and EMT here 🙋
Software engineer. Only chemical I've come in contact with professionally would be CPU thermal paste.
There are great lessons to learn in all of these reports that can apply to non-industry contexts. It's all about preventative problem solving, learning to look at a situation and automatically think, "Ok, before I get too deep into this, what could go wrong here?" Most of the CSB reports point out things that seem painfully obvious in retrospect. It is totally worth taking that extra bit of thought at the beginning, instead of beating yourself up for having missed the obvious after it's too late.
Admin for the NHS here... yep fascinated by stuff like this. At work for example we have different coloured bags for different levels of hazardous waste (from bog standard black domestic bags, to red for infectious stuff), different colours of mops and cloths for cleaning different types of spills. Different coloured medical bins for sharps or medication destruction etc.
First thing I saw in this was 'how do you tell the difference of which chemical is in which drum?' Even before they got into the explanation of what happened in detail.
Former chemical engineer and changed to real estate. I still watch though since they are great lessons in human behavior.
We can never really say "Yay, another CSB video!" because it almost always means somebody died...but yay, another CSB video. Very interesting and educational even for those of us who don't work in heavy industry.
Not necessarily. There was that one story in Wisconsin where a bunch of asphalt leaked at a factory but the first responders had trained with the company and nobody ended up dying. They even stopped the leak and put the fire out in the same day. In fact, it was the best possible outcome given the scenario.
Earlier this week I had a tyre patched at a tire kingdom shop. The shop sent a young kid ( maybe 20 y/o) w just a floor jack, no jack stands, no wheel chocks, to lift and work under my 7000lb truck. I took photos and informed the local manager and corporate. Also I called OSHA. As of 72 hrs later no one has shown any interest in the problem. Guess we just have to wait until someone loses life or limb. Very sad.
I used to work Merchant's now Tire Kingdom they don't give a shit about safety and didn't care that we needed new equipment my store manager almost had his head smashed from a tire after he got it on the rim went to put air in it to set the bead and when the bead set the whole tire came flying off the tire machine
You wouldn't believe how many people disable the locks on their lifts ...
@@Merker367 I know ive seen some pretty stupid shit when I was in the shop guys not putting lift on locks to service manager getting his leg cut open when he opened the bay door and the glass fell out of the door
If you're just doing a tire and you're not under the vehicle you're fine. I mean, might fuck your brake rotors up a bit if it falls, but thats it
What kind of truck do you have that weighs 7000 lbs? F250 or equivalent?
@@RVBJohn ok so a shop drops your car on it's rotors and bends up the shields and your supposed to be ok with that? No matter if someone's under the vehicle or not, always use stands
This is genuinely one of the best and most informative channels on TH-cam.
Here's a little deeper understanding of the actual chemical reaction that caused the explosion (from csb.gov): The "XL 10" mentioned is a methylhydrogensiloxane and dimethylsiloxane copolymer. When mixed with a KOH/water mixture, the KOH catalyzes a reaction with water and XL 10 to produce large amounts of hydrogen gas.
Thank you, I was wondering about the details
Is this pH related, because for adjusting it was fine, but dumping a whole barrel in it triggered it?
@@VintageTechFan I'm no expert on this particular process but my theory is that the KOH for pH correction was added to finished product whereas the accident KOH was added to an unreacted ingredient. It's definitely possible that the finished product has totally different properties than the "pure XL 10" precursor. I'm drawing on my experience with adhesives manufacture which is similar but different.
Adding KOH to either the XL10 or the product can produce H2 (I may have seen that fact in an article I read on this accident). Since pH balancing the finished product seems like it was a routine process, I am guessing that it produces MUCH less H2 and/or more slowly, so you can get away with it if you do it afterwards. Polymers tend to be relatively unreactive. Analogous to tossing a match onto a pile of flour as opposed to into a cloud of flour dust....
I've been involved with laboratory safety for many years; making it difficult (or better, damned near impossible) to accidentally have incompatible chemicals come in contact with another is a big area of concern.
Coincidentally, I was once a quality lab chemist in a plant with a process that could easily have created a large smoking hole in the ground. I was glad to move on from that one!
@@corydalus981 rewatching the video it seems as if the night shift added waay too much KOH to the process. The proper amount probably releases a managable amount of H2, but they added too much.
I get so excited when you post new videos. This is one branch of the government that has actually not let me down the past 2 years. USCSB is amazing, and saves lives preventing future accidents. I wish I could give more praise to the people behind posting and creating these videos. Keep up the good work team. I want more of my tax dollars sent here.
This ^
10% for the big man
I used to pass this facility daily and used to live 10 minutes away from here. I was working at the fire department when the explosion occurred and felt it shake the doors 15 miles away. Some of my coworkers responded there. One of the victim's families created a memorial scholarship at our department for him
These are always entertaining AND educational. Like Mayday or Forensic Files but for hazardous chemicals, instead of airplanes, or married men you just told you were pregnant at night in a truck in a parking lot
Don't forget Seconds From Disaster, where they tell the viewers how things went wrong. Heck, even the Deepwater Horizon and Texas City were shown on it
Are you from Canada? I noticed in other countries they call the show 'Mayday', Airplane Disasters. I love Mayday and Foremsic Files, I've been watching both since 2005.
@@boobyhill6921 No, but we get the Canadian rips when streaming it
@@decepticonsretreat where do you stream it? i’ve just been watching the one with the british narrator on youtube but i really prefer the canadian narrator
I am just happy that these videos are finally getting recognition. I tried spreading them way back in 2014 to no avail. I don't know why they became popular all of a sudden.
My daughter went to school with one of the men who were killed. He survived but passed away a short time later. He left behind a wife and children. So, so sad. My heart breaks for them. I grew up in that area. I remember when they built that plant. Such a tragedy.
Thank you for another informative, interesting, engaging video. These are extremely valuable, not just for people in the related industry or industries, but also for people in completely different fields, as a reminder to know and care about safety measures and procedures. As always, perfectly well done!
I couldn’t do that job. I’d be too upset to make a professional testimony: I’d be like “These mother***ers didn’t have an alarm, a ventilation system, a gas detector, training for the workers, or common fu**king sense to label the reactive chemicals in a different color container. 4 people have tragically perished because the management is deadly incompetence personified”.
I really feel as if these videos are a massive public service, since I found this channel I’ve watched most of the acciedent reports and thoroughly enjoyed (maybe not the right word considering the unfortunate circumstances surrounding these videos) but nonetheless I really feel there is a lot of value in these. It really makes me aware of how complacency, ignorance, and inadequate planning/procedures can cause fatalities. As someone who is training to be a pilot I feel it’s very important for me and my peers to understand WHY fatal accidents happen from not just a technical perspective but also a human one. Thank you CSB for the informative videos.
This is so sad. I was on a road not far from there when it happened and saw the explosion. The explosion could be felt 16 miles away and took out some power. It’s nice to hear some closure about what happened.
Hydrogen gas is insanely explosive. Making a car run on it soooo much worse in an accident compared to petrol
Props to the CSB employees for managing to state the safety recommendations so patiently.
My sister once brought up this channel in a discussion. It made me happy and proud to know she was watching these.
🏆👍
I learned about this channel 4 years ago while in my chemical process safety class. I have since graduated but still watch these videos
Wow, the level of production on this docu is insane. Csb stepped their game up big time.
CSB videos are great! Having lived through a much smaller hydrogen explosion, I can testify that having people aware of the possibility of such an event is half the battle...
Greetings from Ireland.
Great video, very well put together! Brilliant shared learnings, thank you keep great work coming! Love this channel as a EHS advisor it’s very useful!
These magnificent high-quality animations are helping export knowledge of these incidents to the masses. Definitely worth it!
As soon as I saw the mixup and how it occurred, I was thinking "Why can't the drums be different colors?".
We've used some of these principles outlined in these videos at home and in the workshop. For example, the bleach is in a physically different cabinet than other, incompatible cleaning solutions such as ammonia solution. Likewise, we keep hydrocarbon products like spray paint and automotive chemicals in yet another couple areas, divided up so the entire supply doesn't catch fire should ignition occur.
Blue drums are industry standard for a lot of bulk chemicals. You can , theoretically, get custom stuff but that is additional costs and delays. And there are thousands of chemicals and infinite combinations of them. We have KOH in IBCs and it looks like every other IBC on a warehouse.
I would be interested in a detailed video, and/or analysis, about a production facility that does this right. Second of all, materials like KOH are very dangerous and it should be illegal to sell them in the same containers as any other material (but with a sticker!). But that is jut me I guess.
the drums are a standard bulk container and it wasn't clear if they were being reused inside the plant or not.
however a good way to deal with this is to simply have your receiving (or loading if dealing with internal reuse) department put a band around the barrel, could be as simple as a colored band or as complex as a laser cut sign depending on the needs of the individual plant, once empty the band would be removed.
Likewise, these additional mixed chemicals should have the amount needed measured out into a separate container and then the excess put back in the storage
@@DWPL89 I think my idea for an in house band or sign that gets installed on all containers as soon as they are brought in would deal with your problem as well, if the bean counters don't like the idea find out how much a single mix up of those IBCs would cost, I'm sure anything form a few thousand to a few million if something like what happens in the video happens.
Because they order it from suppliers.
2 feelings
Emrgurd, a new video with awesome animations
Second feeling, someone had to die or get badly injured for a new one to go up
I was walking down the street a block away when this happened. I felt the shockwave from the explosion; it was insane. I've been eagerly waiting for the results of this investigation.
Same. I was sitting by the patio door, and the shockwave, and the hot wind. Every window and door rattled from the force.
Animation team. You all deserve a raise. Well done 👏
It is appropriate that the company's website has a tribute to the four employees who perished in this horrible accident.
I never want these videos to have to be produced, but I'm always so grateful when they are. This is so well done, as always.
Yeah yeah we get it safety violations should never exist blah blah blah it’s a tragedy blah blah blah
@@RepresentWV Look at the millennial trying to be "edgy"
I know these videos are meant to be more in line with things like training videos, but they also show that having good production values make them quite good as edutainment or whatever you want to call it.
This is how any video meant to educate should be done.... this is the kind of thing that people actually pay attention to, which is precisely what you want in educational or training videos (or similar).
It's messed up with the 2014 incident that they didn't learn to add or update safety protocols. It could have probably prevented the 2019 incident.
My brother has worked in the chemical industry for years .. i worry about his safety everyday even though he speaks of endless safety meetings and protocols.. it onky takes one careless mistake, fatigue, rushing etc, to not come home. Eggcellent video as Mr. Burns would say.
Are these videos considered fair use or creative commons? I'd like to use this in my communications class, since I teach trades students it's very relevant. This is a good example of how effective communication can prevent accidents.
Thank you for your interest in CSB safety videos. All CSB safety videos are in the public domain. We encourage you to use the videos for educational purposes but do ask that you please provide attribution to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
Under US law, government reports are in the public domain. So you are completely in the clear to use this in your class.
@@USCSB thank you! I appreciate the quick response.
We still use USCSB's hot work video in new employee training. 👍 I actually just randomly came across their TH-cam channel today and now I'm binge watching.
My windows were shattered just a few miles away. I went to high school in the area. Seeing the CSB helmets around the site and area is what introduced me to this channel
Been following this channel for years, always great stuff (in terms of content made, not tragedies that happen). The animation also seems to have really made improvements recently, kudos to you guys, well done.
Thanks, this type of accident is all too common.
Had a very minor incident myself when water found its way into a drum containing small amounts of acetic anhydride(which is extremely reactive), the drum had not been completely emptied and was then used for tank washings. Fortunately no one was hurt, but it was scary.
even a balloon of hydrogen is a super violent reaction, I can't imagine how big that explosion must of been.
I mean, you can see the aftermath. It blew out the whole factory, down to the framework
What made this all the worse, it would seem, is that instead of dumping the hydrogen outside, the ventilation system mixed it thoroughly with the internal atmosphere, turning the upper stories into a huge fuel-air bomb.
@@watchm4ker That was my first thought. Surely the hydrogen could have been vented out of the building. When it wasn't, the result was inevitable.
As a safety professional, I love the diverse, cult following of the CSB TH-cam channel
The animations are getting so good that it legitimately takes my brain a second to decide whether a scene is real or not
i came here to say this! the first overheard shot of the building dag gone near looked like it was real, and i swear i know 3 dudes who look just like those cg dudes!
@@marctronixx 😂😂😂😂
These videos are absolutely incredible. From the script, to the narrators voice. My goodness.
imagine using same-coloured drums with different chemicals
Blue is an often used colour.
with different, incompatible chemicals nonetheless!
@GsaUce Rug Lip service is given about training but rarely done because....that would take away from production time.
Blue, black, white, or translucent are about the only colors available in that style drum.
@@2fathomsdeeper exactly, these morons think they choose the drum colors lol
This is where it pays to have a system where each chemical has a barcode and you scan it in before adding it. The computer then checks and makes sure that chemical is on the recipe. If done correctly it provides a "second set of eyes" and helps prevent simple mistakes that as in this case turn out to be deadly. It also keeps you from spoiling batches & wasting chemicals.
Wow, another CSB video already?
Notification gang
Yes sir !
These videos are one of the most valuable things produced by the entire federal government
Love these videos so much, thanks for continuing to put them out in such a well presented format
Never thought I'd be binge watching safety videos
It's gonna be a good day when USCSB blesses us with a new video!
I'm curious who narrates these videos. Whoever they are, they're certainly the right person for the job - their voice positively _radiates_ knowledge and authority.
Wake up babe, new csb video dropped
😂😂 I used this exact joke with the last girl I dated🤣👏🏼👏🏼
Haha
So what was the punishment for this company's negligence? It seems they knew there were problems with their safety procedures and employee training, but chose to ignore it.
I'm guessing it was a mediocre fine and a only civil lawsuit?
It's insane that chemicals which could cause hydrogen gas explosions if you mess up their production are not covered under epa or osha standards
as someone with a very elementary understanding of chemistry, just the name "potassium hydroxide" sounds dangerous as fuck. potassium = boom, hydrogen = boom, oxygen = fire and more boom
edit: for fucks sake, same colored drums for the same compounds?
Its called an oversight
I mean tbh, the hazard is really the volume of the chemicals used. Lots and lots of chemicals can produce hydrogen when mixed, that's very common. The company should have had a general chemical hazard control program that would have applied to this. There really isn't any gap in the regulation as far as I know, they just didn't do what they're supposed to. Just look at the fact that they had gas detectors but that they were non-functional.
I guess what I'm saying is, these chemicals really aren't especially hazardous but there should have been a program in place to identify and prevent the kinds of issues that occurred and it should have been audited.
@@sauercrowder As I understand it, gas detectors at that facility had very short life spans because of the particular types of products produced there. Arguably, they should have instituted regular testing and replacement, but it's easy to let that kind of thing slip when there's noone checking up on you regularly, telling you that you have to do it.
@@technoturnovers7072 That's not quite how chemistry works. Potassium Chloride sound very dangerous. Potassium = Boom, Chlorine = Deadly. When in actual fact it's sea salt ( or at least a major component of it) and people eat it every day.
It's maddening to think that despite the decades of accidents caused by companies simply neglecting basic and common-sense safety procedures, similar accidents are still happening today.
USCSB deserves more funding. Also companies and people from other countries can learn lessons from this!
There have been a few comments from foreigners saying that they use these videos for training in their countries.
Having received training and certification in both hazardous materials safety and occupational health and safety, it saddens me to see that these videos have to be made. That being said, knowing we can take the lessons learned from these terrible incidents and hopefully bring us that much closer to zero makes work like what you're doing all the more worthwhile. Kudos, CSB
Bittersweet as always, happy to learn and see a new video, but sad knowing that people got hurt for it to be made
Glad you are releasing more of these. The more publicity these issues receive, the better!
Oh hey, a new video. Oh no, a new video.
2019 and no gas alerts. What a failure of a company.
“Babe wake up, there’s a new CSB video”
Haha
I love these videos. As horrible as the circumstances are, it's good that we can learn and share this knowledge with everyone.
This could have been prevented by a $1 roll of colored PVC tape
I live 2 hours away from this and never heard about it. Thank you for highlighting it.
As much as this may seem like a morbid fascination to look forward to these videos, I work as an industrial electrician.
So for me, these high quality videos have actually made me *more* aware of hazards and my working environments when on the job.
This is tangent: You see this? A dispassionate summary of an event followed by a detailed explanation with causes and solutions? This is how the news should be reported. No angry rants. No ideologies. Just the actual facts.
The number of combinations of reactive hazards are unlimited. Trying to limit them are important but having safeguards in place to detect them might be even more important.
Great comment!!
The potential number of reactive hazards aren't 'unlimited'; they're specifically limited by the number of different chemicals that a facility has on hand. A well developed safety program would include, at a minimum, identifying the potential 'worst case scenario' reactions, and having appropriate mitigative measures in place. Detecting a dangerous reaction after it has begun, is certainly not a better solution than avoiding those reactions in the first place.
@@historyteacher5821 I agree. But accidents still happen. It is sort of like the code and the fire department. We have codes to minimize hazards. But try as we may, we still have the fire department because accidents happen.
Thanks to the USCSB for another well presented and very educational safety video. As a taxpayer and consumer of the end items many of these processes support, your highlighting opportunities for industries to improve their practices to save lives and the environment are much appreciated and a great value for the dollars spent. This is free education and information for industry. Preventing accidents and harm to employees costs many, many times less than dealing with the consequences of ignoring dangers inherent in so many day-to-day processes we all take for granted. I wish more companies would apply this logic when it comes to maintaining and operating work place hazard reduction programs.
I used to work at a chemical factory and let me tell you, when the alarm went off once people sprinted for their lives to get out of the building.
Turns out some asshat pulled the alarm and was caught on camera, but those people understood the danger very well. Ever since this incident, I can clearly see why now.
A worker on a chemical factory once said to me: "If you hear the bang, then you are OK".
These videos are always very informative and extremely well done. I like watching them but quite often people lose their lives or are seriously injured. I’d be ok to never see another video if it meant nobody was hurt or killed anymore and company’s were following safety standards.
Well, the good news is you're going to get to keep enjoying CSB content.
whoa! recently started another csb binge, and these animations are really good! keep up the great work guys! these videos have come a long way! ☆
Literally in a chemical safety meeting right now. What timing!
Pay attention to the meeting then instead of watching youtube jeez...
This channel may actually have the best video production quality on all of TH-cam.
Gotta say if it hasn't yet, gotta love how our taxes go toward things such as this. Makes me grateful that some of the money is going towards something good
So far, not a single USCSB video has been relevant to my life. I'm gonna watch them all anyway.
First rule of vapor clouds... If you see one forming, exit the area immediately. I'm not being flip or putting down the people who died. This is basic hazmat training, if you work with chemicals, you should be trained in this; "when in doubt, evacuate." Doesn't seem like they were, unfortunately.
This seems to be a common thread in these incidents (see the Ghent gas station explosion). And in a lot of unnecessary deaths and injuries in other disasters (specifically wildfires, mass shooters etc etc) - "when in doubt, GET OUT" is the golden rule of *staying alive.* The most being the first to the exits and very far away will cause is some inconvenience or embarrassment or maybe lost money. Staying out of uncertainty can cost you horrible injuries or your life.
That fire up in the hills *can* be on you in five minutes with bad winds. Those pops/booms aren't firecrackers or whatever else your brain tells you they are. That gas cloud should be assumed to be explosive, toxic, or some horrific combination of the two - and shouldn't be there in the first place.
GET. OUT.
@@questionablebackyardmeows The issue for a lot of these is an inability to recognize dangers due to poor/zero safety training.
Reminds me of a Feynmann story on the Manhattan project - workers were storing uranium slurry, and when asked by the inspecting physicists if they weren't worried that stacking the barrels as they were doing could cause an explosion, the workers responded, "huh? EXPLODE?"
At least that had secrecy guidelines as an excuse, this is just negligence.
As someone who is going for emergency management, these videos are really interesting and highlight the need for hazardous materials incident planning.
this narrator is legendary 😁i probably said that already, but he's just perfect voice for such documentaries. Mr Smith, thank you, you're doing a great job and making this documentaries even more enjoyable🙏🏻❤️👌🏻cheers from Slovakia