Evacuation As A Protective
Measure
Presented at the 38th Annual Meeting
of the Australasian Radiation Protection Society (ARPS)
Cairns, Queensland
Australia
October 13-16, 2013
George Anastas,
P.E., CHP, DEE, FHPS, FARPS
Albuquerque, New Mexico
USA
Disclaimer
• The views expressed herein reflect only
the views or opinions of the author.
These views or opinions may or may
not represent or reflect the views or
opinions of any past, current or future
employer(s), children, Grand Children
or colleagues.
George Anastas, Albuquerque, New Mexico
October 2013
RISK
• A Threat of loss, real or perceived, to that
which we value (life, health, security,
family, children, order, …)
– Remember, perception is reality!
3
Scenario
• As we are sitting here, the Fire Alarm
sounds.
• What do you do?
– 1) Nothing, just sit there.
– 2) Stand up and exit the facility following
instructions by Facility Staff, Police or Fire
Protection staff.
– 3) Nothing, just sit there and discuss all the
reasons why you should not exit the facility
and all this is overkill (no pun intended).
Texas City, Texas, 1947
• The French Liberty ship Grandcamp was prepared to
load the remainder of a consignment of ammonium
nitrate fertilizer. Some 2,300 tons were already onboard,
880 of which were in the lower part of Hold 4. Smoke
and fire. The Captain of the Grandcamp appeared and
stated in intelligible English that he did not want to put
out the fire with water because it would ruin the cargo.
Instead, he elected to suppress the flames by having the
hatches battened and covered with tarpaulins, the
ventilators closed, and the steam system turned on. The
result was explosion and fire, call Fire Department, lots
of help arriving.
•
Reference: http://www.local1259iaff.org/disaster.html
Texas City, Texas, 1947 (cont.)
• WHOOPS!!!! As help poured into Texas City, no
one gave much thought to another Liberty ship
tied up in the adjoining slip. The High Flyer was
loaded with sulfur as well as a thousand tons of
ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It drifted into the
remains of the Grandcamp and it too …
• Crude oil tanks on shore burst into
flames, and a chain reaction spread
fires to other structures previously spared
damage.
Texas City, Texas, 1947 (cont.)
• 405 identified and 63 unidentified dead. Another
100 persons were classified as "believed missing"
because no trace of their remains was ever found.
Estimates of the injured are even less precise but
appear to have been on the order of 3,500
persons. Some evacuation.
Poza Rica, Mexico, 1950
• The accident originated from one of the local
factories which recovers sulfur from natural gas.
The flare used to burn H2S to H2O and SO2 went
out. The release of hydrogen sulfide into the
ambient air lasted for only 25 minutes. The
spread of the gas under a shallow inversion with
foggy and calm conditions killed 22 people and
hospitalized 320. No evacuation.
•
Reference: Paradigms Lost: Learning from Environmental Mistakes, Mishaps and Misdeeds By
Daniel A. Vallero and Personal Communication from Harold Paulus, University of Minnesota
Three Mile Island
• In an atmosphere of growing uncertainty about the
condition of the plant, the governor of Pennsylvania,
Richard L. Thornburgh, consulted with the NRC about
evacuating the population near the plant. Eventually, he
and NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie agreed that it would
be prudent for those members of society most vulnerable
to radiation to evacuate the area. Thornburgh
announced that he was advising pregnant women and
pre-school-age children
within a five-mile radius of the
plant to leave the area.
TMI (cont.)
• Within a short time, chemical reactions in the melting fuel
created a large hydrogen bubble in the dome of the
pressure vessel. NRC officials worried the hydrogen
bubble might burn or even explode and rupture the
pressure vessel. In that event, the core would fall into the
containment building and perhaps cause a breach of
containment. The hydrogen bubble was a source of
intense scrutiny and great anxiety, both among
government authorities and the population, throughout
the day on Saturday, March 31. The crisis ended when
experts determined on Sunday, April 1, that the bubble
could not burn or explode because of the absence of
oxygen in the pressure vessel. Further, by that time, the
utility had succeeded in greatly reducing the size of the
bubble.
The US Internal Revenue Service
and Evacuation
• Because of the evacuation order, the IRS
permitted evacuees an extra month to file
their federal income tax returns. ☺
• The IRS advised the evacuees that they
would have to pay interest on any
amounts owed the government at the time
of the original filing deadline(!!!!????)
•
Source: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective: Three Mile Island by J.
Samuel Walker (the Historian of the US NRC), University of California
Press, 2004, Page 195
Bhopal, 1984
• The Bhopal disaster was a gas leak incident in India, considered
one of the world's worst indistrial disasters.
• NO EVACUATION (some resident fled)
• Several hundred thousand people were exposed to methyl
isocyanate gas and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its
way in and around the shantytowns located near the plant.
• Estimates vary on the death toll.
– The official immediate death toll was 2,259.
– The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths
related to the gas release.
– Others estimate 8,000 died within two weeks and another 8,000 or more
have since died from gas-related diseases.
– A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries
including 38,478 temporary partial and approximately 3,900 severely
and permanently disabling injuries.
Chernobyl (Accident initiated on
26.04.86 at 1:22 AM)
• The people in the town of Pripyat received non-trivial radiations
doses. “The worsening trend of the radiation situation in the city
during 27.04.86 continued until 17:00 i.e. until the complete
evacuation of the population was carried out, the radiation was 360540 mR/h, and in the area of Kurchatov
Street, 720-1,000 mR/h. Evacuation of
the population was begun at 27.04.86,
at 14:00.” (Ref. Appendix 7, §7.2.2, page 52)
Reference : „The ACCIDENT AT THE CIIERNOBYL AES AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, State Committee for Using Atomic Energy of USSR,
Date Prepared for the I&EA Expert Conference, 25-19 August 1986, Vienna, Translated from the Russian, Department of Energy, NE-40,
August 17, 1986
Some Notes on Fukushima
• On March 12, about 28 hours after the tsunami
struck, TEPCO executives had ordered workers
to start injecting seawater into Reactor No. 1.
But 21 minutes later, they ordered the plant’s
manager, Masao Yoshida, to suspend the
operation. They were relying on an account by
the TEPCO liaison to the Prime Minister, who
reported back that the Prime Minister seemed to
be against it.
Masao Yoshida, Fukushima Plant
Manager
• But Mr. Yoshida chose to ignore the order.
The injections were the only way left to
cool the reactor, and halting them would
mean possibly causing an even more
severe meltdown and release of radiation,
experts said.
MASAO YOSHIDA The manager of the power plant, he
ignored orders to stop pumping seawater into a reactor
to cool it, an act of defiance that may have prevented
many deaths.
Fukushima Evacuation
• Keep in mind that there was a large earthquake, followed
by a huge tsunami and nearly 5,000 megawatts of power
knocked offline at the site.
• Of necessity many persons evacuated well away from
the coast because of the earthquake/tsunami.
• Tremendous physical and psychological stressors on the
Government, First Responders, TEPCO and the public.
• Statements by TEPCO and the Government that plume
from damaged nuclear powerplants was traveling out to
sea (however heated plume, plume rise and winds aloft
back to shore).
Fukushima Evacuation (cont.)
• If seawater was not used to cool the
reactor facilities, the releases would have
been much greater
• 10 km
• 20 km
• 50km
• 80 km (US NRC recommended, WASH740???)
What Was the Largest Seaborne Evacuation
Event Completed in the Shortest Period of
Time?
• Dunkirk in 1940?
•
•
•
•
New York City September 11, 2001?
Immediately After the Closing of ARPS 37?
Melbourne After the Melbourne Cup in 2012?
Melbourne After the Grand Final in 2011?
9/11 New York City
• On 9/11, local mariners were responsible for an
evacuation greater than Dunkirk -- between
350,000 and 500,000 people were transported
from lower Manhattan by boat in just 9 hours.
• The evacuation of Dunkirk took 9 days to move
just under 350,000 under horrendous attacks by
the Luftwaffe.
• Another key difference is that the Manhattan
effort was begun spontaneously by civilian boat
operators.
9/11 New York City (cont.)
• Manhattan is an island
• Bridges, tunnels and
subways were shutdown
• People were afraid of
another terrorist attack on NYC
• Should they have evacuated???
• See Slide Titled Err on the
Conservative Side in Evaluating
“Protective Measures” following
So Where Are We on the Issue of
Evacuation????
– 1) Nothing, just sit there.
– 2) Stand up and evacuate following
instructions by Facility Staff, Police or Fire
Protection staff.
– 3) Nothing, just sit there and discuss all the
reasons why you should not evacuate and all
this is overkill (no pun intended) and the risk
of evacuation is
greater than the
risk of any fire.
NUREG/CR-6864
Identification and Analysis of
Factors Affecting Emergency
Evacuations
• The following factors were statistically significant for a less efficient
evacuation: traffic accidents, number of deaths from the hazard,
number of injuries caused by the evacuation, people
spontaneously evacuating before being told to do so, people
refusing to evacuate, and looting or vandalism.
• In addition, interviewees stated that the following contributed to the
efficiency and effectiveness of their evacuation: a high level of
cooperation among agencies, use of multiple forms of
emergency communications, community familiarity with
alerting methods, community cooperation, and well-trained
emergency responders.
• All 50 evacuation cases studied safely evacuated people from the
area, saved lives, and reduced the potential number of injuries from
the hazard.
A Quote from George
(Not Anastas)
• As George Santanya (Jorge Agustín
Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás) a
Spanish-American philosopher, essayist,
poet, and novelist once said,
“Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it.”
A Quote from George
(Yes Anastas)
• There has been a historic
complacency about worst case
Scenarios.
• This complacency still exists
today.
ERR on the Conservative Side in
Communication
• If the status of the situation is uncertain
(incomplete or conflicting initial information or
uncertainty in the particulars), a reasonable
approach for the Initial communication would be
to err on the conservative side and add the
statement that the situation is being closely
monitored by experts and they are providing
periodic status updates, later it can be indicated
that the situation was not as bad as was initially
thought.
ERR on the Conservative Side in
Evaluating Protective Measures
• If the status of the situation is uncertain
(incomplete or conflicting information or
uncertainty in the particulars), a reasonable
approach would be to evaluate all alternative
protective measures and err on the conservative
side with continuous monitoring of the situation
by independent experts on the Emergency
Team. Later it can be indicated that the situation
was not as bad as was initially thought (if that
was the case).
ERR on the Conservative Side in
Evaluating Protective Measures
• Such an error is a lot more fortunate than
having erred on the casual side and the
situation turned out to be much worse that
it was thought to be.
The Bottom Line
• The evaluations necessary to declare an evacuation
requires the concurrent evaluation of science, law,
safety, psychological, public policy, public health and
political ramifications at the time an action is required:
evacuation should not be declared without a thorough
evaluation of all considerations by experts in each of the
myriad of considerations. However in serious
emergencies adequate time is not always available for
such a careful assessment. This urges careful
advanced planning, exercises and comprehensive
debriefings of the exercises.
Several Key Considerations
• George‟s (Yes, Anastas) Axiom
– Never ever criticize ANY FIRST
RESPONDER until you walk
1609 meters (one mile) in their shoes!!!!
• The best decisions are made at the time
the decisions have to be made with the
information at hand.
• Be wary of promoters
Some Major Considerations for Evacuation
Preparedness and Management
•
•
•
•
•
Contingency planning for various scenarios
Early evaluation of the danger
Communication, multiple alarm and notification
Groups of evacuation teams
Evacuation distance based upon “real” risk
analyses (Do not use PRA!!, GA Opinion)
• Frequent updates of emergency and evacuation
plans
Any Questions????