Tag: Kanawha County Emergency Management

2 Dead in Cargo Plane Crash at Yeager Airport

A cargo plane crash landed at Yeager Airport in Charleston just before 7 a.m. Friday, killing the pilot and co-pilot, according to emergency officials. 

Update May 7, 2017- 5:15 P.M.:

Officials have identified the pilot and co-pilot killed in the crash of a propeller plane carrying UPS cargo at a West Virginia airport.

The Air Cargo Carriers plane made a hard landing at Yeager Airport in Charleston and went off the edge of a steep, wooded hillside on Friday. Officials said it had arrived from Louisville, Kentucky.

The airport says in a news release that the victims were identified as 47-year-old Johnathan Pablo Alvarado of Stamford, Texas, and 31-year-old Anh K. Ho of Cross Lanes, West Virginia. Responders had to cut their way through thick brush and trees from above and below to reach the bodies.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.

Update May 6, 2017 1:40 P.M.: 

Runway at Yeager Airport is now open.  

Update May 5, 2017 11:40 A.M.: 

Emergency crews were trying to reach the crash site from above and below, Yeager airport spokesman Mike Plante said.

“It’s difficult terrain to negotiate,” Plante said.

Nearly two dozen emergency vehicles lined the runway, which was closed as crews continued to work the scene.

The Air Cargo Carriers plane had departed from Louisville, Kentucky, at 5:43 a.m. and arrived at the Charleston, West Virginia, airport at 6:51 a.m., Plante said. He said the plane was a small, twin-engine turboprop.

Plante said officials have no idea why the plane, which made regular runs to the airport, crashed. The weather in Charleston was sunny and clear.

The airport is closed until at least Saturday morning.

Original story appears below. 
 
A cargo plane crash landed at Yeager Airport in Charleston just before 7 a.m. Friday, killing the pilot and co-pilot, according to emergency officials. Upon landing, the plane skidded off the side of the runway and down a hillside into a wooded area.

According to Kanawha County emergency services, the plane is leaking diesel fuel, which is interrupting cleanup and investigation into what happened.

Yeager Airport officials say the plan was coming from Louisville, Kentucky.

Mike Plante a spokesman for Yeager Airport, told WCHS-TV in Charleston the company that owned the plane was Air Cargo Carriers. The company contracts with UPS.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Chris O’Neil says a six-person investigation team is on their way to Charleston.

Small Chemical Leak Reported at Institute

A Kanawha County emergency official says a small amount of ethylene oxide leaked at Bayer CropScience’s plant in Institute.

C.W. Sigman with Kanawha County Emergency Management tells media outlets that the leak was reported around 8 a.m. Thursday.

Sigman says the leak was contained to the plant and doesn’t affect the public.

He says Bayer CropScience crews responded to the leak.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration says ethylene oxide is primarily used in the production of ethylene glycol and other industrial chemicals. The chemical is flammable. Exposure could result in respiratory irritation and lung injury, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, shortness of breath, and cyanosis.

WV DEP Doesn't Know Source of Sheen on Kanawha River, Says It's Not Harmful

Updated on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014 at 5:17 p.m.

WCHS-TV reports that DEP spokeswoman Kelley Gillenwater said the agency’s emergency response unit checked out the sheen, and believes it is possible it came from a boat, but the agency likely will never know the source for certain.

The DEP doesn’t believe the sheen poses any threat to the public, according to their report.

Gillenwater told West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the nearest public drinking water intake is in Huntington along the Ohio River.

Original Post from Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014 at 1:32 p.m.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is investigating an oily substance on the Kanawha River, according to WSAZ-TV.

The Charleston television news station reports Kanawha County Emergency Management Director C.W. Sigman says the origin of the substance–and how much of it is present–is currently unknown. 

Sigman says the substance spans the length of the boat dock at Haddad Riverfront Park in Charleston and there isn’t enough of the substance to require a full remediation effort. 

DEP spokeswoman Kelley Gillenwater told WSAZ that state environmental crews were en route to the scene just after noon.

Kanawha Co. Maps Chemical Storage Sites for Quicker Response

Just days after a chemical contaminated the water supply of three hundred thousand West Virginians, officials in Kanawha County officials started assessing their response to the disaster and found there were things they could do better. One of those things, having a more clear way to locate chemical storage sites quickly during an emergency.

Emergency management officials say that project is in its initial phases, but will never fully be complete.

Kanawha County Emergency Services Deputy Director C.W. Sigman said the county already had access to the necessary information to locate chemical storage sites, just in a very unorganized way.

The types of chemicals and where they are stored, that’s available to every county in Tier II reports filed by companies through the state. But those reports aren’t exactly user friendly.

Matt Thomas, an emergency coordinator for Kanawha County, said they basically come to emergency management officials on a huge Excel spreadsheet and are listed by chemical, not location.

So, if a company has hundreds of chemicals on site, it’s listed hundreds of times. Not very practical.

That’s why he, Sigman and the entire Kanawha County Emergency Management staff have put together a new system for storing this information. A visual system that’s easy to use.

To put it simply, Thomas says it’s like a Google map with all of the storage locations pinpointed to an address and GPS coordinates.

“So, you can just say, well, we know that DuPont is only one place and we know where it’s at,” Thomas said. “Instead of having DuPont listed 500 times, let’s have what chemicals they have listed one time and put them on a map.”

The idea is that this map can be used in two ways.

The first would be in a situation like the initial reports of the Elk River chemical spill. As emergency dispatchers receive reports of maybe an odor complaint, they can pull up the map, pinpoint the caller’s location and see what storage sites are in their area.

Second, those dispatchers can then send emergency responders to an exact location quickly to investigate and can also tell them what kind of specialized equipment they may need if they encounter any leaked chemicals.  
 
Last week, when a white foam was reported on the Elk River, the tool was offered up to aid in the response.

But Sigman said, it really wasn’t needed. He and his team have spent so much time compiling information on the sites surrounding the river that they knew the area from memory and knew exactly where to check.

“We looked at the Public Service District plant, it wasn’t coming from the waste treatment plant. It wasn’t coming from any of our known sources,” he said. “As soon as our first emergency manager got on scene, he pretty much knew what it was. Nothing.”

And it turns out, it was nothing. A naturally occurring foam from the breakdown of organic compounds, according to West Virginia American Water.

But still, the map was there and ready to go, in case it had been a real emergency.

“Our approach right now is knowledge. We want to know where these things are at that way when something happens we can take the appropriate corrective action,” Sigman said.

“We’re not out to get anybody arrested or get anybody in trouble or shutdown any businesses. That’s not our goal. We want everyone to be responsible and we want to know what’s out there.”

Right now, Kanawha County has identified 516 storage locations that Sigman said aren’t necessarily holding pollutants, but 516 locations the county feels they need to be aware of.

The list isn’t done, however, and Thomas said it may never be done.

He and Sigman will be conducting what they call windshield surveys, going out and traveling the county looking for unreported tanks and every year as companies update their Tier II reports, Kanawha County will update its map, preparing them for the possibility of a repeat of the January 9th spill.
 

White Foam on Elk River Investigated, WVAM Says No Effect on Water Quality

Updated Thursday March 27, 2014 at 10:53 p.m.

West Virginia America Water says test results of foam samples taken earlier today from the Elk River are complete. As the company suspected in a release earlier today, the completed test results “indicate no changes to source water quality and no characteristics outside of typical water quality parameters.”

The company manages an intake for 30,000 residents in Charleston and surrounding areas that lost access to clean tap water after a chemical spill contaminated the Elk River on January 9.

In previous statements West Virginia American Water pointed out  that foam can naturally occur in organic waterways.

“After receiving notification of a foam on the Elk River this morning, and with the health and safety of our customers as our number one priority, we made the decision to shut down the plant’s raw water intake pumps for approximately two hours until more information could be gathered,” President Jeff McIntyre said in a release late Thursday night.

“System conditions today allowed for the plant to maintain adequate water storage during this brief time, which was a very different circumstance than on the day of the Freedom Industries spill. At that time, the decision to maintain water service to customers for firefighting and basic sanitation was the best decision for the communities we serve.”

Updated Thursday March 27, 2014 at 6:16 p.m.

The 35th Civil Support Team of the West Virginia National Guard Thursday afternoon received a sample of the foam on the Elk River drawn by the Department of Environmental Protection.

Lawrence Messina of Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety said the CST tested the sample with a gas chromatography–mass spectrometry instrument to identify whether the foam contained man-made substances.

“Analysis of the chromatograph did not show any compounds present in the sample,” said Messina in an email.

Updated Thursday March 27, 2014 at 5:30 p.m.

West Virginia American Water said in a news release that initial testing of foam spotted on the Elk River Thursday indicates “no changes to source water quality and no characteristics  outside of typical water quality parameters.”

Additional tests are being conducted and are expected Thursday evening.

The release also states that, following notification from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, staff investigated the Elk River upstream of the Kanawha Valley water treatment plant intake.

The company said they shut down the Elk River Treatment plant’s raw water intake pumps for approximately two hours until more information could be gathered.

Original Post from Thursday, March 27 at 11:43 a.m.

Officials with the Department of Environmental Protection and Kanawha County Emergency Management are investigating a white foam substance spotted Thursday morning on the Elk River. The DEP was alerted of the incident when a resident contacted local TV news station WSAZ, who then relayed the information to county officials.

DEP Communications Director Kelley Gillenwater said the substance was spotted upstream of the Freedom Industries site. She said DEP inspectors are on site and West Virginia American Water has been notified as per protocol.

Kanawha County Deputy Emergency Manager C.W. Sigman said officials believe the substance might be soap suds but a county emergency manager is on site. He said they’re making use of an interactive mapping program to attempt to locate the substance’s origin. 

In a news release, West Virginia American Water said they were notified of the situation around 8:40 a.m. Thursday and water quality staff from the Kanawha Valley treatment plant are investigating the foam spotted “intermittently along the banks of the Elk River from Coonskin to Queen Shoals, as well as along Big Sandy Creek in the Clendenin area.”

The water company says the foams appears to be “naturally occurring” but staff are taking samples to the Charleston plant for pH, turbidity and conductivity analysis. The release states samples are also being taken to the Huntington plant for further organics analysis.

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