By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com
“Special prayers,” wrote one PeeDeePost.com reader, “for the people that still see this day like it was yesterday.”
Today is the 23rd anniversary of the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant fire in Hamlet. The blaze claimed 25 lives and injured 56 others with severe burns, blindness, respiratory disease and more. Lawrence Naumoff published a book in 2005, entitled “A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow” and in 2012, Robert Cotter and Maureen Costello produced a 22-minute film that revealed the inside story of the fire.
The lessons learned from the Sept. 3, 1991 tragedy at the one-story brick and metal building are many. The Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report that focused on such lessons. From the 23-year-old event came a slew of new rules and regulations.
* Life safety codes must be enforced;
* Cooking areas must be separately partitioned from other employee work areas;
* Building exits in wet type operations should have double emergency lighting, one positioned above the door and one low to the floor;
* High pressure equipment maintenance and repairs must be limited to factory trained personnel and specifications;
* High pressure equipment in probable incident areas should have built-in catastrophic shut down valves;
* Negative air flow systems in these facilities could enhance safety by being modified to also accomplish smoke evacuation;
* State and federal inspectors from various departments should be cross-trained;
* Establish a “worry free” line of communications for industry employees;
* The number of OSHA safety inspectors must be increased;
* Emergency exit drills must be incorporated into industry policies.
The FEMA report shows that the Hamlet facility employed about 200 people, with about 90 people working on an average shift.
The fire began in the processing room, centrally located in the 30,000-square-foot plant. A rigged hydraulic line had broken at the point of the makeshift repair, and droplets of hydraulic fluid “began to splatter,” according to the report — right into the gas heating plumbs for the cooking vat.
“The vapors then were going directly into the flame,” the report noted. “The vapors had a much lower flashpoint than the liquid hydraulic fluid and therefore rapidly ignited. In sum, the pressurization of the hydraulic fluid combined with the heat was causing an atomizing of the fuel which in all probability caused an immediate fireball in and around the failed hydraulic line and the heating plumbs. The ignition of the fuel caused an immediate and very rapid spreading of heavy black smoke throughout the building.”
The investigation concluded that seven workers were trapped between the area of origin and any escapable routes. Though a post-fire measurement showed between 50 and 55 gallons of hydraulic fluid fueled the fire — about half as much as normal — the problem was compounded when the flames reached a natural gas regulator that failed “and caused an induction of natural gas to the fire increasing the intensity and buildup of toxic gases.”
Witness reports, according to the FEMA investigation, indicated that much of the plant was involved within two minutes. Efforts to escape the blaze were hindered by confusion.
Where were you on Sept. 3, 1991? How did you react/respond to the situation? Join the conversation on The Pee Dee Post’s Facebook page or comment below.
