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Hazardous Materials
A hazardous material is any item or agent (biological, chemical, physical) that has the potential to cause harm to humans, animals, or the environment. A hazardous materials spill occurs when hazardous materials are released in an uncontrolled manner. This can happen while a substance is being transported or at a fixed facility. One example is the oil spill resulting from the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig that released more than an estimated 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there were 14,953 hazardous materials incidents (1,389 air incidents, 12,750 highway incidents, 743 rail incidents, and 71 water incidents) in the United States in 2011 alone.
Those who use hazardous materials are required by law to report the substances being used so emergency responders know which materials may be involved in a hazardous materials incident in their jurisdiction. Vehicles transporting hazardous materials, such as railway cars and tractor-trailers, are required to be placarded with basic information about the materials they are carrying.
Hazardous Materials Identification
There are two main systems by which to identify hazardous materials. One system was developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and a related system was adopted by the United Nations (UN). The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) developed an additional system of placard information.
The DOT/UN system uses a diamond-shaped placard on vehicles transporting hazardous materials. Labels are used on other types of containers. Each hazardous substance is assigned a class for identification purposes. The class of the substance is displayed on the placard in the form of a four-digit number. The placard itself is in the shape of an 11-inch diamond and has to be displayed on all four sides of the vehicle.
Placards and labels are required on all shipments of the most dangerous materials, which include radioactive materials, water-reactive flammable solids, explosives, and some dangerous poisons. Placards are also required on shipments of less dangerous hazardous materials when the shipment contains more than 1,000 pounds of the substance.
The Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG) is developed jointly by Transport Canada, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation of Mexico (SCT). The ERG contains a list of the four-digit codes and the chemicals they represent. The ERG is intended to be used by emergency responders to help them identify any hazardous materials at the scene of an incident. The ERG also provides information on how responders can protect themselves and the public from the hazardous material in question. The manual outlines the particular fire or explosion dangers of the substance where applicable, as well as the health risks if one is exposed to the material. The ERG includes information on the recommended protective clothing emergency responders should wear while working near the substance and suggests evacuation distances to protect people from large spills.
There are nine categories of hazardous materials, and the hazard class of dangerous items is indicated either by its class/division number or by name, as listed
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- Agencies, United Nations
- Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, UN (UNDP/BCPR)
- Environment Programme, UN (UNEP)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
- International Children's Fund, UN (UNICEF)
- International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, UN (UNISDR)
- Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, UN (UNICRI)
- Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN
- World Health Organization (WHO), UN
- Agencies, U.S.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Emergency Management Agencies, City and County
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- State Emergency Management Agencies
- U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
- Categories of Crises: Engineering and Technological
- Air Traffic Control
- Air Travel
- Biological Engineering Risk
- Bridges
- Buildings
- Chemical Risk
- Cyber Crime
- Cyber Security
- Cyber Warfare
- Dams, Levees, and Seawalls
- Electronics Waste
- Environmental Contamination
- Hazardous Materials
- Hazardous Waste Disposal
- Improvised Explosive Devices
- Manufacturing Risks
- Marine Shipping
- Marine Travel
- Mining
- Nanotechnology
- Nuclear Risks
- Ozone Layer Depletion
- Petrochemical Risk
- Sewage Spill
- Smog
- Spaceflight
- Transportation Systems, Vulnerability
- Y2K Bug
- Categories of Crises: Financial and Business
- Categories of Crises: Natural Disasters
- Categories of Crises: Politics, International Relations, and Civil Violence
- Arms Control
- Biological Weapons
- Border Disputes
- Cabinet Office, UK
- Chemical Weapons
- Civil War
- Ethnic Cleansing
- Failed States
- Foreign Policy Crises
- Hijackings
- Hostage Taking and Negotiation
- Human Trafficking
- Interstate War
- Land Mines
- Missiles
- Nuclear and Radiological Weapons
- Nuclear Proliferation
- Peacekeeping
- Protest
- Religious Violence
- Revolution
- Riots
- Suicide Bombings
- Terrorism
- Transportation Security
- War Crimes
- Weapons Trafficking
- Categories of Crises: Population and Demographics
- Disaster Information Databases
- Nongovernmental Organizations
- Risk Management Standards
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Civil
- Agency Notification and Mobilization
- Civil Protection
- Civilian Protection, Post-Conflict
- Contingency Planning
- Continuity of Government
- Crisis Information Management Systems
- Debris Management
- Decision Making
- Decision Support Tools
- Disaster Assessment
- Disaster Declaration
- Disaster Risk Reduction
- Documentation
- Emergency Alert Systems
- Emergency Management System
- Emergency Manager
- Emergency Support Functions
- Financial Risk Management in Higher Education
- Hazard Mitigation
- Incident Action Plans
- National Incident Management System (NIMS)
- National Preparedness Goal
- National Response Framework
- Operational Plans
- Operational Readiness
- Perimeter Control
- Policy Setting
- Political and Organizational Leadership
- Preparedness
- Prevention
- Protection
- Search and Rescue
- Situational Analysis
- Stafford Act
- Sustainability
- Threat Detection
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Corporate
- Alternate Site, Corporate
- Auditing
- Backup Facility
- Backup Media
- Backup Strategy
- Business Continuity Management
- Business Continuity Planning
- Business Continuity Planning Life Cycle
- Business Impact Analysis
- Business Resumption Planning
- Classification of Systems
- Cluster
- Cold Site
- Continual Improvement
- Critical Applications
- Critical Business Functions
- Criticality Assessment
- Data Mirroring
- Data Recovery
- Dedicated Site
- Disaster Declaration Officer
- Disaster Recovery
- Disaster Recovery Life Cycle
- Disaster Recovery Plan Test Cycle
- Downtime
- Electronic Vaulting
- Failover
- Fink's Crisis Life Cycle
- Impact Analysis
- Incident Management
- Incident Response
- Insurance
- Journaling
- Losses, Quantitative Versus Qualitative
- Maximum Acceptable Outage
- Minimum Business Continuity Objective
- Mirroring
- Mitroff's Five Stages of Crisis Management
- Mobile Recovery Site
- Reciprocal Agreement
- Reciprocal Site
- Recovery Time Objective
- Reinsurance
- Reputational Risk
- Response Team
- Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threat (SWOT) Analysis
- Supply Chain
- Vital Records
- Warm Site
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: General
- All-Hazards
- Cascading Crisis
- Catastrophe, Definition of
- Climate Change Adaptation
- Collaboration
- Command and Control
- Contingent Coordination
- Coordination
- Coping Capacity and Response Capability
- Credibility
- Crisis Communications
- Crisis Management, Emerging Trends in
- Crisis Simulations
- Crisis, Definition of
- Critical Infrastructure
- Damage Assessment
- Damage Containment
- Debriefing
- Decision Making Under Stress
- Disaster Drills
- Disaster, Definition of
- Disruption of Organizations
- Early Warning Systems
- Electronic Media
- Emergency Management, Principles of
- Emergency Medical Care
- Emergency Operations Center
- Emergency Public Information
- Emergency Responders
- Emergency, Definition of
- Evacuation
- Exercises
- Fusion Center
- Hazard Vulnerability Analysis
- Hazard, Definition of
- Historical Analogies, Use of
- Impact, Definition of
- Improvising
- Incidents Versus Crises
- Interdependence
- Interoperability
- Legal Liability
- Logistics
- Mass Care
- Mass Fatality Management
- Mass Media
- Mental Models
- Methods, Qualitative
- Methods, Quantitative
- Multiple Disaster Problem
- News Media
- Nongovernmental Organizations
- Nonlinearity
- Panic, Nature and Conditions of
- Pre-Crisis Training and Planning
- Pre-Impact Planning Process
- Public Awareness and Education
- Public Image
- Public Relations
- Recovery
- Residual Risk
- Resiliency
- Resource Management
- Response
- Risk Analysis
- Risk Assessment
- Risk Treatment
- Routine Emergencies Versus True Crises
- Safety Policies
- Scapegoating
- Scenario Planning
- Shelter-in-Place
- Simulations
- Social Media
- Spokesperson, Designating and Utilizing
- Stakeholders
- Strategic Plans
- Training
- Trauma
- Trigger Events
- Uncertainty
- Volunteer Coordination
- Vulnerability
- Warning
- Whistle Blowers
- Worker Error
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Public Health
- Cholera
- Drug Resistance
- Ebola Virus
- Emergency Medicine
- Epidemics
- Health and Medical Response Scenarios
- HIV/AIDS Epidemic
- Hospital Emergency Room
- Infectious Disease
- Infestations, Parasite
- Influenza
- Living Modified Organisms
- Malaria
- Measles
- Mental Illness
- Noncommunicable Diseases
- Pandemics
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Public Health Surveillance
- Public Safety Canada
- Quarantine
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
- Smallpox
- Social Distancing
- Surge Capacity, Hospitals
- Triage
- Tuberculosis
- Vaccinations
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Social Sciences
- Blame, Politics of
- Bounded Rationality
- Bureaucracy
- Chaos Theory
- Cognitive Novelty, Engaging in
- Cosmology Episode
- Coupling
- Decision Making, Theories of
- Decision Stream
- Groupthink
- High Reliability Organization Theory
- Information Asymmetry
- Information Vacuums
- Normal Accident Theory
- Normalization of Deviance
- Organizational Failure
- Paradigm Blindness
- Practical Drift
- Risk Society
- Structural Secrecy
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