FIRST RESPONDERS AND THEIR INITIAL BEHAVIOR IN HAZARDOUS CHEMICAL TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENTS

In a recent 4-year study the Disaster Research Center (DRC) of the University of Delaware began the first large-scale social science study of sociobehavioral responses to acute chemical emergencies. In the first phase, DRC obtained systematic and comparative field data on local preparedness for chemical disasters in 19 communities in the United States. In the second phase, 26 field studies were undertaken of organizational and community responses to major accidents that resulted from toxic releases, explosions, spills, fires, or other sudden hazardous chemical emergencies. Field studies and analyses were conducted after 1981 to test and extend some of the earlier work. Observations and findings on first responders and their initial behavior in hazardous chemical transportation accidents are summarized in this paper. DRC found some major differences between responses that occur at fixed sites compared with acute chemical emergencies that occur while a vehicle is in transit; the latter type of emergency is more problematical than the former. The response of first responders to in-transit emergencies is characterized by significant uncertainty about the nature of the chemical hazard and a tendency to initially underestimate the severity of the chemical hazard. Difficulties and problems are compounded by a variety of different impact and situational contigencies that can significantly and adversely affect the initial response pattern. Even though the DRC findings are drawn only from studies in the United States, there are reasons to suspect that considerable cross-societal similarities might exist in the pattern of the behavior of first responders to acute chemical emergencies.