Procedure to Identify Potential Emergency Situations and Accidents

A

alina.cirstoiu

Could somebody to help me with a procedure to identifu potential emergency situations and potential accidents that can have an impact(s) on the environment and how it will respond to them.

thank you.
 
S

samsung

Could somebody to help me with a procedure to identifu potential emergency situations and potential accidents that can have an impact(s) on the environment and how it will respond to them.

thank you.

For identifying potential EHS emergency situations/ accidents, you need to proceed through the following steps:

1. Determine the type of industry you are in - hazardous or non-hazardous (it depends on the nature of processes involved and most probably it should have been defined in your country's health & safety legislation)

2. Also determine the inventory level of hazardous chemicals stored on site / off site (at an isolated place under the organization's control). This is quite necessary in order to determine the 'level of applicable controls' to your industry. There must be some laws in your country governing the storage of hazardous chemicals. The laws also specify the 'level of controls' that apply once the inventory of Haz. Chem. exceeds the specified threshold limits.

3. Based on the outcome of the above studies, if your processes are of hazardous nature and the storage of chemicals exceed the threshold values, you are mandated to proceed with

(a) A risk assessment & hazard Risk / Aspect Impact analysis

(b) An on-site emergency/ disaster management plan in respect of all the potential emergencies (normally in accordance with the prescribed methodology & in a format prescribed by the authorities)

(c) An off-site emergency plan may also be required based on the storage quantities & severity of impact.

(d) Regular drills at prescribed intervals & reporting to the concerned regulatory authorities.

Hope this helps.
 
Dont forget to incorporate near miss reporting as an input to the procedure. This satisfies continual improvement response in the procedure.
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
Could somebody to help me with a procedure to identifu potential emergency situations and potential accidents that can have an impact(s) on the environment and how it will respond to them.

thank you.

Alina,

Usually what you ask is an outgrowth of the environmental impact assessment (EIA).

Gather a small (3 to 8) team representing the riskiest processes/products (significant aspects).

  1. Brainstorm the potential emergencies
  2. Rank the ones that are most likely and most serious
  3. Ensure preventive action is taken on these
  4. Include documented operational controls for all siginificant aspects
  5. Rerank the ones (see 2 above) that are most likely and most serious (after effective preventive action)
  6. List the aspects arising from each potential emergency
  7. Ensure the emergency plan includes controls limiting the adverse impacts of the most likely/damaging types of emergency
  8. Include something for the employees like choking or heart attack if not already covered by your management system

Repeat with every re-run of the EIA when planning changes to the products, processes and facilities.

John
 
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