Dallas-Based Danger Data Program for First Responders Struggles to Survive After West Explosion

Firefighters and trucks gathered in a staging area recently in West before a procession to Waco's Ferrell Center for a memorial honoring victims of the deadly fertilizer explosion.  Michael Ainsworth/Staff Photographer

CLICK HERE - E-Plan - Delivering Vital Hazmat Information to First Responders

dallasnews.com - by Randy Lee Loftis - August 10, 2013

As federal agencies scramble to meet President Barack Obama’s Aug. 1 order to fix a broken chemical emergency system after the West Fertilizer Co. disaster, a small program with the potential to save the lives of firefighters and the public is struggling to survive.

For more than a decade, workers in a controlled-access office at the University of Texas at Dallas have run the nation’s farthest-reaching network offering first responders facility-specific information on chemical risks when they arrive at an industrial fire or leak.

With programs such as E-Plan, firefighters at the scene can get free, online and highly secure data on the nature and location of chemicals, explosion hazard warnings and sensitive risk-management plans — insights that many state-run chemical reporting systems, such as Texas’, do not make available to fire departments in real time.

But E-Plan’s funding ends Aug. 31, the result of a budget decision by the Department of Homeland Security.

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