HomeMy WebLinkAboutNew Hanover County LEPC Minutes 7.14.20211
New Hanover and Pender Counties
Meeting Minutes for July 14, 2021
1:00 PM in person/TEAMS
List of Attendees
Name Business Name Business
Brandon Sproles Acme Smoked Fish Diana Craft
Jeff Suggs NHC Health Dept.
Mark Lewis
Joe Moar
Jerry Needham
Airgas National Welders Robin Lorenzen NC Dept. of Emergency
Management
Jeannine Patané
Michael Thompson American Red Cross Heidi Cox NC Dept. of Environment and
Natural Resources
Dustin Stream
Natosha Tew
City of Wilmington Fire
Department Allen Hancock NC Dept. of Transportation
Joshua Schieffer Duke Energy Billy Howard NHRMC EMS
Kyle Earley Elementis Paul Carr NHRMC Emergency Management
Tina Kuhr
Mark Venters
GE Hitachi/Global Nuclear
Fuels John Dittmar NC State Ports Authority
Quint Ocock
Randy Wright
HEPACO Adrienne Michalek Pender County Health Dept
Darren Goodman Kinder Morgan Charles Debrah Praxair
Ben Gagnon
Teresa Smith NHC Emergency Management Elizabeth Meyer Stepan Company
Frank Meyer NHC Fire and Rescue Ron Stancil Sturdy Corporation
John Steinauer IEM (Guest) Eric Griffin UNC-W Environmental Health &
Safety
Welcome and Introductions
Teresa Smith welcomed those attending in person and online.
Review and Approval of Minutes
The minutes of the May 26, 2021, meeting had been distributed previously. Some corrections had been
received. The minutes were accepted as corrected.
2
Presentation – Commodity Flow Study Project, John Steinauer
John presented the preliminary results of the Commodity Flow Study (CFS). The goals of the study were
to provide a demand pull CFS, and to establish a factual basis for further public health planning. John
reached out to area industries and received a very good response. Forty-nine facilities responded and
provided information on the 21 chemicals of interest. For those that did not respond, John used
estimates based on three times the maximum storage on site. The specific chemicals were chosen
because they had a community scale, high impact due to being extremely hazardous substances, highly
volatile liquids, or reactive. Alcohols, hydrogen peroxide, and nitrates are a big part of the fire hazards in
this community. Others include gasoline and hydrazine. John is still working on Isolation Protection Zone
corridors, which he largely based on the DOT Emergency Response Guides. The report will include
recommendations for the LEPC’s consideration. He expects to finish the study by the end of July.
Committee Updates
Training and Exercise Committee – The committee has chosen Crisis Tech as the contractor they will
be working with to develop and conduct a complex Hazmat Tabletop exercise in late October or
November. All LEPC members will be invited to attend. The plan is to walk through the response to a
Hazmat event from initial 911 call, focusing on communication flow paths and capabilities. The plan
it to take the lessons learned from the tabletop and then do training and a functional exercise in
2022, followed by a full-scale exercise in 2023.
Conference Planning Committee (new committee) – New Hanover County has received a $20,000
LEPC Competitive Grant. The deadline to spend the funds is February 2022. The plan is to do an LEPC
sponsored conference. Please provide ideas for the conference or let Teresa know if you are
interested in being on the planning committee by July 26. Jeannine Patené, Adrienne Michalek and
Dianna Vetter Craft volunteered to participate on the committee.
Membership Announcements
HEPACO will be sponsoring lunch for the September meeting.
Open Forum
Special events are on the increase. DOT is having to manage the requests for street closures. The
Azalea Festival is scheduled for August.
COVID rates are increasing due to the Delta variant. Public Health is encouraging vaccination. The
vaccination rate in New Hanover County is ~50%, but rates in Pender and Columbus Counties are
lower (~30%). COVID protocols will impact shelter capacity.
EMS, Police, and NHRMC all reported increase in requests for service and emergency department
visits.
NC Emergency Management reported that the US Coast Guard (Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach)
will be on the VIPER system. Their first communications exercise is scheduled for August 4.
Duke Energy is focused on system reliability and hurricane preparation.
Airgas is building oxygen supplies.
3
Wilmington Fire Department will be having an exercise with the National Guard’s Civil Support Team
the third week in September, focused on Hazmat and Confined Space. They will have two different
sites, the Battleship North Carolina and Cape Fear Community College North Campus.
New Hanover County will be doing an exercise with the Department of Defense in November or
December, with a plane crash/Hazmat scenario.
Global Nuclear Fuel will hold their biennial exercise either October 20 or October 27.
Eric Griffin mentioned that UNCW has a weather station. The data is available to anyone with
internet access. This data may be more representative for emergency responders in some parts of
Wilmington than data from the National Weather Service at the airport. (He provided the link and
Teresa Smith distributed it to the LEPC members.)
Next LEPC meeting will be September 8 @ 11:00am – In-person/TEAMS