Experienced Teams Capable of Mitigating Risk, Injury
Even the most secure of precautions may not prevent disaster, as in the unfortunate Arkema explosion in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey despite two backup generators for protection against losing power to refrigeration systems.
There’s no question that severe weather – not only hurricanes – will continue to pose risks for U.S. processors. Processors in the food, pharma and parcel industries can take steps prior to and after natural disasters that mitigate the risk for injury, accidents or contamination.
Planning & Preparedness
According to Jim Worden, Structural Engineering Manager at EAD, disaster preparedness and its subsequent recovery begins with a detailed emergency action and communications plan.
The priority of any plan, he said, is to keep personnel safe. That means the plan should include tornado shelters, evacuation routes, muster areas and high ground. It also means providing workers with adequate food, water and shelter if they become stranded at the plant. A storage unit should be sturdy (i.e., steel or concrete) and set on a foundation so it doesn’t move. Personnel should know where it’s located and a plan should be put in place for updating and maintaining it. In addition, the plan should provide information for securing the facility and orderly processing line shut down.
If the facility rests on a flood plain, then it must have levees and flood walls. According to Worden, many facilities are built on the flood plain because it’s less expensive. He recommends using 100- or 500-year flood criteria to raise the foundation of the building.
Worden said: “Raising the plant is cheaper than having to replace it later.”
He also recommends using the flood criteria when placing backup generators. EAD can establish electrical service backup with generators and establish fuel availability, siting and elevated structures.
“If your prediction for a 500-year flood is 4 feet of water, the generators need to be placed at least 4 feet above the ground,” Worden said.
According to Food Engineering, other recommendations on planning for future severe weather include:
- Moving transformers, switchgear, MCCs and control cabinets to mezzanines above the flood plain.
- Placing major pumps and other critical systems on elevated pads above the flood plain.
- Preparing and executing a controlled shutdown of key systems such as refrigeration, hazardous chemicals and electrical systems.
Recovery
According to Worden, an effective and thorough action and communications plan will aid in disaster recovery, as well. Plant owners should contact their engineering team to ensure the plant, its 
processes and other components are safe to operate.
When examining a plant after a natural disaster, Worden first observes any collapsed portions of the facility to establish safe areas vs. unsafe areas. Typically, emergency responders have identified safe areas. Then, he’ll walk the remainder of the facility to find indicators of the start of any collapse mechanisms (e.g., loss of structural bolts), excessive deformations, and cracking or displaced concrete to assess if the structure is still stable for operations.
The action and communication plan should determine what to do with product that has expired or no longer meets quality and/or regulatory standards. If a shutdown was not able to be performed completely or properly and material is stuck in the process, the plant needs a plan for correct disposal.
Process-wise, Worden said, engineers will look for pipe cracks, joint separations, leaking utilities and disconnected and/or failed instrumentation, while electrical engineers will look for exposed wiring, damaged motors and damaged panels and transformers.
“The assessment depends on the damage severity,” he said. It took him and a team of engineers three weeks to perform an assessment on the Stennis Space Center after Hurricane Katrina.
In a food or pharmaceutical processing plant, it’s crucial that asbestos, mold and moisture are eliminated, even from between walls and under flooring, according to Food Engineering. Sanitization and microbiological testing, as well as a general heat treatment (125 to 135 degrees) or fumigation should be completed, according to AIB’s “Flood Disaster Recovery.” Shut down lines should also go through a cleaning procedure prior to testing.
To learn about more ways to prepare for and recover from a natural disaster, read the full article at FoodEngineering.com.
Natural Disaster Management Through Engineering Solutions
As the state of Texas has recently shown with their power grid failure as the result of a 2021 freak snowstorm across much of the United States — if you’re not adequately prepared for a natural disaster, you will eventually be exposed.
With the world reeling from the worldwide novel coronavirus pandemic, Mother Nature didn’t wait before unleashing frigid cold into Texas and other southern states earlier this month. But unlike those states and cities that had hardened their grids against colder weather, the typically temperate state of Texas has shown the world what can happen if you’re not adequately prepared.
The Role of Engineering in Disaster Management
Without a proper plan and safeguards in place, you could be exposing your entire operations to the whims of Mother Nature — and we all know that she has a unique sense of timing. So unless you want to end up on the front pages and TV screens of newspapers and news programs, you need natural disaster management powered by solid engineering principles.
Sure, you’ll have to pay up front for some good advice as to what you need to do to harden your systems and prevent an issue from taking over, but disaster planning and adequate recovery services can help you avoid spending your entire budget and more on clean-up, PR and other associated costs with the next natural disaster that affects your operation — because it’s coming.
That makes natural disaster management engineering not only cost effective, but it can also increase productivity and lead to a better allocation of resources when you have a veritable plan in place. That’s much better than winging it and hoping that you don’t get caught — and the redundancies and measures that you implement is a much better place to spend your budget and resources than in picking up the pieces after some sort of failure.
With natural disaster management engineering, you’ll also be able to retain customers and provide a better service with less downtime overall, which can also help you scale and do more with your valuable resources down the line and into the future.
EAD can assist with any of the precautions and recovery efforts mentioned above and more. To learn more about us and our disaster preparedness and recovery services, contact our team.