Emergency Management from the Response to Prevention and Process Safety Element Synergies with NFPA 1600. Learning Experiences

The emergency management systems have existed large industry for many years. This paper attempts to analyze the evolution of these systems in recent years and the important role currently played in schemes of prevention, risk mitigation, and process safety. The complexity of operations and the risk level of many activities of production, storage, and transportation have forced the former internal emergency plans focused exclusively on the response evolve to integrated systems for Prevention, Preparedness, Mitigation, Response and Recovery that consider also the possible impact on the external environment.

The magnitude that many accidents can be reached by product type and inventories that are currently handled has demonstrated that many organizations do not have on its own of all the human and material resources needed to control the consequences of an accident on their own. Thus, the concept of preparation systems and integrated response where community and many external actors such as firefighters, police, health system become important parts of this system either as active participants or in some cases as subjects of protection

The paper analyzes the evolution of the NFPA 1600 standard since its first edition in 1995 until the recent 2016 and the synergistic potential effect of this standard safety systems Process CCPS as "Risk Based Process Safety" and "Vision 20 -20". One of the elements of Risk Management pillar is precisely "Emergency Management" and "Provide knowledge to stakeholders" one element of the pillar of "Commitment Process Safety" both in the CCPS RBPS system . Both issues are objectives of the NFPA 1600 "Emergency Management / Disaster Program and Continuity of Operations and Business"

The CCPS Vision 2020 project looks to the future to describe how Process Safety is managed when is collective and strongly supported by industry, regulators, academia and the world community. It focuses on 5 principles for industry and 4 social issues. Two of these social issues "Increasing awareness of stakeholders" and "Responsible Partnership" are analyzed as part of the “Community Awareness , Preparedness and Emergency Response "in the context of the NFPA 1600.

Models based protection layers or barriers distinguish between preventive or mitigation layers. The first are those that produced a detour try to bring the system to its original situation preventing the event is triggered. The second are those acting when the event is triggered trying to minimize or mitigate its consequences.

The paper analyzes several accidents where the lack or poor preparation, lack of adequate and accurate information about hazards and risks and how to behave in case of an accident to the stakeholders, has resulted in very serious consequences.

The paper presents some practical examples of improving Preparedness and Response Emergency Community Plans by working together industry, local governments and the community using the NFPA 1600 as a guide