Pima County officials are investigating an emergency public information issue that occurred last week when a truck carrying nitric acid collided south of Tucson, killing the driver and releasing an orange gas plume. .
A collision occurred on February 14 between Kolb Road and Rita Road on Interstate 10, killing the driver. The incident triggered four emergency alerts to the public, urging people to evacuate the area.
However, the Pima County Board of Supervisors, county officials and residents said more detailed and accurate information should be communicated to the public sooner from the State Department of Public Safety, which worked with the Tucson Fire Department to lead the response.
According to the county, little public health information was available to the public about what was happening during the day and night of the accident.
At a Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, the resident told the board that he was unaware of the alert because he didn’t have a cell phone and went straight to the area where the incident occurred.
He described side street traffic and people fleeing the area on foot. He called the spread of communications a “miserable failure” on the part of Pima County, and complained that he had heard nothing from the Tucson mayor, county administrator, or governor.
District 4 supervisor Steve Christie, who includes the crash site, said a frightened voter had asked his office for answers about what was going on, but he had not been notified and was unable to provide any information. said there wasn’t.
“In cases like this, it’s the closest form of local government that people want answers to,” says Christy. “At first, no one contacted me.”
He received the latest information Wednesday morning when he spoke with county administrators.
Response was under state jurisdiction
County administrator Jean Lescher said the county was not responsible for the response.
“There was a communication flaw that actually occurred and we weren’t disclosing the information to the public,” said Lesser.
Story details:Authorities close I-10 in Tucson after identifying man killed in crash spilling nitric acid
By Wednesday, the county’s Department of Public Health intervened and began releasing information about what the health and safety risks from hazardous material spills are.
Pima County Emergency Management Authority Director Shane Clark said the DPS arrived at the scene at 2:44 p.m.
By 5:06 pm the following day, four additional shelter-in-place messages were sent to the public during the cleanup of the spilled chemicals.
“We haven’t heard anything from the state. We haven’t heard anything from the governor’s office,” Christie said.
Christie described residents seeing orange plumes bouncing around their neighborhood and recalled the horrors he heard on voter calls to his office.
crash details
The driver who died in the crash has been identified as 54-year-old Ricky Immel of Nevada.
Clark said an investigation into the cause of the crash was ongoing and a reported 3,575 gallons of nitric acid was spilled. He said no environmental impacts have been reported.
After the crash, winds moved the plume cloud northeast, leading to the evacuation of a school, a large industrial park, a trailer park, and one resident who lived in the area.
A fire also broke out at the scene and was extinguished.
Clark reiterated that few people who passed through the plume early in the crash were exposed.
He said someone had to be at the feet of the crash for a long time to be exposed, making it unlikely that the chemicals traveled there, according to the Arizona Poison Control Center.
Clark said the Unified Command responded to the emergency “in an excellent manner” but acknowledged there were gaps in communication. rice field.
