Evaluation

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Permalink Reply by Jetty Middelkoop on August 27, 2009 at 4:56pm

Hi Todd,

My worst nightmare ever was a call for a "leaking vessel". Normally, leaking vessels often are a drugs dump on the side of some lonely road or a small can of some household stuff in a home or barn. When I called the alarm center and asked what the vessel contained, I was told : 36 million liters of benzine. I could not believe what I heard: that was not a leaking vessel but a large leaking fuel storage tank! It turned out that one of the pontoons under the floating roof had started to leak. This made the roof sink so far, that the drain opening on the roof got under the benzine level - and started moving the benzine into the tank pit, that only had a dirt floor but never the less already contained a lot of liquid above that what had already sunk in the soil. As land is very expensive in our small country, the distance between the tanks is the minimum that is required - according to my common sense basically much too close together. The weather forcast was a thunder storm and we had a whole open tank and tank pit with quickly evaporating, very flammable fuel. As an extra problem, it turned out that the main foam monitor did not work and there was not enough foam in case of a fire. It took us 5 days to get rid of the direct danger by pumping the fuel out of the tank (ever heard a roof scratch and squeek along the tank wall while it slowly sinks? Getting sweat crawl along your spine with the thought of some friction spark or heat and the results that could lead to? I never hope to get such a call again - and ever since, I distrust "leaking vessel" calls.

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Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on August 27, 2009 at 7:36pm

Thank you JETTY!

What was the intial call for trucks? How many engines, ladders and so on?

Jetty Middelkoop said:

Hi Todd,

My worst nightmare ever was a call for a "leaking vessel". Normally, leaking vessels often are a drugs dump on the side of some lonely road or a small can of some household stuff in a home or barn. When I called the alarm center and asked what the vessel contained, I was told : 36 million liters of benzine. I could not believe what I heard: that was not a leaking vessel but a large leaking fuel storage tank! It turned out that one of the pontoons under the floating roof had started to leak. This made the roof sink so far, that the drain opening on the roof got under the benzine level - and started moving the benzine into the tank pit, that only had a dirt floor but never the less already contained a lot of liquid above that what had already sunk in the soil. As land is very expensive in our small country, the distance between the tanks is the minimum that is required - according to my common sense basically much too close together. The weather forcast was a thunder storm and we had a whole open tank and tank pit with quickly evaporating, very flammable fuel. As an extra problem, it turned out that the main foam monitor did not work and there was not enough foam in case of a fire. It took us 5 days to get rid of the direct danger by pumping the fuel out of the tank (ever heard a roof scratch and squeek along the tank wall while it slowly sinks? Getting sweat crawl along your spine with the thought of some friction spark or heat and the results that could lead to? I never hope to get such a call again - and ever since, I distrust "leaking vessel" calls.

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