A freight train has derailed in your coverage zone and several tank cars are lying on their sides within a quarter mile of homes and a school. One of the cars is marked as carrying chlorine, and a faint smell of this chemical has been reported.

As part of your response, you call the Chemical Transportation Emergency Center (CHEMTREC), which is an initiative of the American Chemistry Council. The person you speak with immediately activates the Chlorine Emergency Plan, or CHLOREP, a mutual-aid system created to provide an organized and effective response in case of an emergency involving chlorine anywhere in the United States or Canada.

The Cholorine Institute, which administers the CHLOREP program, has divided the United States and Canada into regional sectors, each with an emergency team from plants that produce, package and consume chlorine. These sectors are arranged primarily along state or provincial boundaries. When a team is dispatched to an incident, it will come from within the region and from the closest team resource (plant or contractor), or the team that can reach the scene the fastest.

The CHLOREP system is set up to provide technical assistance to incident responders. When a call comes into CHEMTREC, the CHLOREP team responsible for the sector will get the call even before the shipper is contacted. The team leader is given a site contact who he immediately will attempt to reach.

After a discussion with the site contact, the CHLOREP representative will evaluate whether a team is needed on-site or if telephone assistance is adequate to remedy the situation. History shows that about one in five incidents requires on-site assistance.

The fire chief can expect a team to come to the site if he is the local contact and the CHLOREP team leader deems it to be necessary. Once on site, the team can serve as a technical advisor or an entry team, depending on what the incident commander deems to be appropriate. The team will consist of chlorine experts who are well-trained in mitigation techniques.

If a team is dispatched to the scene, it will arrive equipped with necessary protective gear to make entry into the potentially hazardous area and will have specialized tools to address the situation. Depending on the type of transport container involved, the team will be equipped with one or more of three types of emergency equipment. (See "Emergency Kits" sidebar.)

CHLOREP teams typically respond only to chlorine emergencies. When a call is placed to CHEMTREC, the emergency service specialist can provide assistance for other chemicals that may be involved in an accident.

CHLOREP teams do have training in chlorine-related chemicals (sodium and potassium hydroxides, sodium hypochlorite, i.e., bleach and hydrogen chloride), but these are not included in the CHLOREP mutual-aid agreement. However, CHLOREP contractors can respond to incidents involving these other chemicals.

Training Resources

The Chlorine Institute has a video available to first responders free of charge. Chlorine Emergencies: An Overview for First Responders received a Telly Award for safety-program excellence. The material is organized in an easily navigable format that includes a main segment of about 20 minutes that covers the basics of response to a chlorine incident in the critical first 15 minutes. Ten chapters contain detailed segments that cover chlorine properties, mitigation and health effects.

Order a hard copy free by visiting www.chlorineinstitute.org and clicking on the video cover on the left side of the homepage. You will be taken to a page from which you can place your order. From this same page you can download a test (in PDF format) that can be used to quiz students on key points after they have viewed the video.

The Chlorine Institute also maintains a vast technical resource on chlorine, most of which is available free of charge via download from its online bookstore. Currently, 26 of the institute's 47 technical pamphlets are available for free.