“I think the coop should be held financially responsible to all the residents that were evacuated and cover all costs in the deployment of all emergency personnel!!! A thousand dollars or better per household!!! Payable by the end of next week!!!” – Ron Follis, commenting on the Lincoln County Emergency Management Facebook post Shortly before [...]
“This hour I tell things in confidence. I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.” — Walt Whitman I once worked at a plant that produced performance chemicals. Performance chemicals are sold based on what they do rather than what they are. The key specifications are the performance specifications, not the composition specifications. [...]
“That’s what insurance is for, right?” — Liam Dai (and thousands of others) There was recently a fire at a popular business in south Saint Louis city that was widely reported on the local news. As with many fires that happen here in Saint Louis, someone set up a GoFundMe fund to help the business [...]
“You know you are getting old when everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.” — Hy Gardner A few weeks ago, we posted a blog about the need for increased maintenance, testing, and inspection on equipment that has aged past the constant failure rate period of the bathtub curve into the wear-out period of [...]
“Apples and oranges aren’t that different really. I mean they’re both fruit. … I could understand if you said, ‘That’s like comparing apples with hermaphroditic ground sloths.” — Chuck Klosterman A client recently asked us to “outline the difference in method and objective for FMEA vs. PHA/HAZOP and LOPA.” They were interested in evaluating system [...]
“If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.” — Kurt Lewin All change should be managed; in any endeavor, under any circumstances. When people ask about management of change, however, they are usually talking about the specific regulatory requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and its Process Safety Management [...]
“Bureaucracy and compliance now seem less about managing the safety of the workers we are responsible for, and more about managing the liability of the people they work for.” — Sidney Dekker One of the foundations of process safety is that we learn from experience. Because relevant experience comes from making mistakes and facing failures, [...]
“The United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once a fire is lit under it, there’s no limit to the power it can generate.” — Winston Churchill When it comes to process safety, we worry about three things: fires, explosions, and toxic releases. When it comes to worst case scenarios, the EPA requires that we [...]
“Words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.” — Felix Frankfurter One of my favorite things about summer is all the fresh fruits and vegetables. Especially strawberries in June and blackberries in July. “Well, [...]
“In limits, there is freedom.” — Julia Cameron There is great comfort in knowing that even the most hazardous substances have safe limits. One molecule of a substance is not enough to be hazardous. However, there is some concentration—especially for gases and vapors—that is too high to be exposed to safely. A lot of effort [...]
