[Music] Narrator: October 23, 2009. A massive explosion rocked the Caribbean
Petroleum Terminal facility near San Juan, Puerto Rico. Gasoline overflowed and sprayed out
from a large above-ground storage tank, forming a huge vapor cloud, which ignited. [Sound of explosion] Narrator: The explosion damaged
nearby homes and businesses. Petroleum leaked into the surrounding soil,
waterways and wetlands. Fires burned for more than two days,
destroying 17 of the facility's 48 storage tanks. Engler: The CSB found that current EPA
and OSHA regulations are inadequate to control the hazards
from facilities like Caribbean Petroleum, that store large quantities of gasoline and other flammables. As a result, the company was not required to conduct a risk assessment of the danger to
the nearby community from its operations and the company did not have to implement safeguards
that could have prevented the explosion. [Music] Narrator: On Wednesday, October 21, 2009,
Caribbean Petroleum Corporation, or CAPECO, began a routine transfer of more than
10 million gallons of unleaded gasoline from a tanker vessel docked
two and a half miles from the facility. The only storage tank that was large enough to
hold a full shipment of gasoline was already in use. As a result, CAPECO planned to distribute
the gasoline among four smaller storage tanks. This operation would take more than 24 hours to complete. During transfer operations,
one CAPECO operator was stationed at the dock, while another monitored valves
controlling gasoline delivery at the terminal. At noon the next day, October 22, the
operators diverted the gasoline into Tanks 409 and 411. CAPECO used a simple mechanical device
consisting of a float and automatic measuring tape to determine the liquid level inside the tanks. An electronic transmitter card sent the
liquid level measurements to the control room. But the transmitter card on Tank 409 was out of service, so operators were required to manually
record the tank level readings once every hour. At 10:00 p.m., the night of the 22nd, as Tank 411 reached maximum capacity,
operators fully opened the valve to Tank 409. At that time, an operator read the level of Tank 409
from the side gauge and reported it to his supervisor. The supervisor estimated that
Tank 409 would be full at 1:00 a.m. But shortly before midnight,
Tank 409 started to overflow. Gasoline sprayed from the vents, forming a vapor cloud
and a pool of liquid in the tank's containment dyke. The CSB determined that a total of
nearly 200,000 gallons of gasoline, the equivalent of 20 full tanker trucks,
was released from the six vents on the tank. On a warm, windless night, the gasoline vapor cloud
grew to cover an area of 107 acres. At midnight, the tank farm operator was
ready to perform the hourly check of Tank 409, but before reaching the tank, he
noticed a strong odor of gasoline. He alerted the dock operator to shut off
the flow of gasoline to the tank. The tank farm operator and another operator
met the supervisor at the edge of the terminal. There, they observed a white fog rising
approximately three feet above the ground. The supervisor sent one operator to the security gate,
to stop anyone from entering the site. Then the supervisor and the tank farm operator
drove to an elevated point, away from the cloud, to try to identify
the source of the leak. Meanwhile, the pooled gasoline flowed
through open valves in the containment dyke, toward the wastewater treatment area. There, the vapor reached electrical equipment,
which ignited the cloud. [Sound of explosion] Narrator: A flash fire raced back toward the storage tanks. Seven seconds later, there was a
massive explosion ... [Sound of explosion] registered 2.9 on the Richter Scale. The time was 12:23,
approximately 26 minutes after the overflow began. Soon, 17 of the facility's storage tanks
were engulfed in flames. [Sound of explosion] Narrator: Fortunately, the three CAPECO employees
escaped the tank farm and there were no fatalities. Flames from the explosion could be
seen from as far as eight miles away. The shock wave damaged
approximately 300 nearby homes and businesses. Fires continued to burn for over two days. Parasram: The CSB determined
that CAPECO had an unreliable system for monitoring and controlling the
level of gasoline inside the storage tanks. This set the stage for the incident. Narrator: The CSB found that the float
and tape measuring devices used by CAPECO were prone to mechanical failure. These devices were poorly maintained and were
frequently not working on multiple tanks at the same time. Also, the CSB discovered that
lightning strikes and cable breakages often disabled the electronic transmitters that
sent tank level measurements to the control room. CAPECO routinely took weeks to repair
problems with the level monitoring system. Instead, operators checked tank levels hourly and manually calculated the time it would take
for tanks to fill, potentially introducing errors. Parasram: We found that the
float and tape measuring system was the only control system CAPECO
used to avoid overfilling a tank. When that system failed, the facility did not have additional layers
of protection in place to prevent an accident. Narrator: Phil Myers is a nationally recognized expert
on above-ground storage tanks, who assisted the CSB investigation team. Myers: The concept of layers of protection has to do
with safeguards that are in place to prevent an incident. Most tank-filling operations are for
the most part, governed by a single layer, which has to be backed up with other layers. Narrator: The CSB notes that good
engineering practice would have called for at least two additional layers of protection at CAPECO; an independent high-level alarm and an
automatic overfill prevention system. An independent high-level alarm can detect and
alert operators to the danger of an overfill, even if the primary system for measuring
the tank level fails, as it did at CAPECO. An automatic overfill prevention system goes even further, and can shut off or divert the flow into another tank
when the tank level is critically high. The CSB investigation concluded that if both of those
systems had been in place and had been properly maintained, this serious accident most likely would not have occurred. But the CSB noted that petroleum
storage facilities are not regulated under the same process safety management
regulations as oil refineries and chemical plants, handling the same flammable chemicals. Engler: There are thousands of terminal facilities
around the country storing gasoline and similar flammable substances,
often near highly populated areas. That's one reason why these facilities should
be covered under EPA's Risk Management Program, which would require those companies to
develop offsite consequence information, to allow the public to learn about potential dangers. Narrator: Also, the CSB discovered that
current EPA requirements under the Clean Water Act only require that petroleum storage tanks have a
single layer of protection to prevent an overfill. In the United Kingdom in 2005, a similar explosion
occurred from overfilling a gasoline storage tank at Buncefield Terminal north of London. The blast caused massive damage
to the surrounding community. Meyers: At Buncefield, there were numerous times
prior to the incident where the automatic tank gauge, which monitors the level of the tank,
was broken, where the gauge was stuck. So they failed, but the problem was, is the
management system that did not properly exist there. If it had existed, would have said, OK, that's a near-miss. We need to investigate it. What are we going to do about it, how are we
going to prevent this from happening in the future? Narrator: The Buncefield accident
resulted in a major investigation and stricter standards for automatic
overfill prevention systems in the United Kingdom, using what are safety instrumented systems,
operating at a high level of integrity. In its final report on the CAPECO explosion, the CSB recommended that EPA adopt new regulations
for facilities like CAPECO to require that flammable storage tanks are
equipped with automatic overfill prevention systems, and to require regular testing and
inspection as well as risk assessments. Egland: These actions will align U.S. regulations
with best practices developed in Europe following the devastating Buncefield explosion. Narrator: And the Board made
similar recommendations to OSHA, the American Petroleum Institute
and two key fire code organizations, all aimed at preventing tank overfill incidents
through better tank instrumentation and controls. [Sound of explosion] Engler: Thankfully, no one was seriously injured or
killed as a result of the explosion and fires at CAPECO, but the incident caused considerable damage
to the nearby community and environment. Hopefully, our new recommendations will help
prevent similar catastrophes in the future. Narrator: For more information on the CSB's Caribbean
Petroleum Corporation investigation, please visit CSB.gov. [Music]
Nice post, as a non-American I never noticed this channel! Now I can have something to binge watch, and can leave out those super long and dragged documentaries about such incidents! Thanks!
No, its to early to get sucked into industrial accident investigation videos
Cool simulation, explained the whole chain of events well.
But that surveillance video! Holy crap! just how quick that flash fire moves is no joke!
At least when they realized that there was an emergency, everyone responded promptly and competently.
I remember this! It wasn't too far from where I live. My home wasn't one of the affected ones, but you could hear the explosion and the see the smoke from my street. We had fun with this one. Curiously, the report says no one died, but I could have sworn that like two people had died but I could be thinking of any of our other catastrophic failures. Less than two months ago more than a million people lost electricity in PR. I was without light for three days.
This is surreal. I just started reading The Stand by Stephen king and was introduced to the Trashcan man and him blowing up a petrol storage facility.
I was trying to imagine what it looked like and I thought I would see if I could find some videos. Then I come on reddit and here this is!
Somebody definitely got fired for this.
This is so well-made (if a tad dramatised with the music). It reminds me of the animation made by the Dutch Safety Board of their findings from the MH17 crash.
That's a lot of unneeded CO2 emissions.