Lightening strikes an aluminium plant....

Companies sometime look at us weird when we talk about protecting employees and plants from weather. “Weather!?” Is usually the response when we broach this topic. “Yes weather”, we respond. Every region has their own unique weather occurrences from tornadoes in the USA and Europe. To hurricanes or typhoons in some other regions. How about grass fires? You name it we can mention an incident where an aluminium plant had an incident involving a natural weather occurrence. Here is a recent example that know no regional boundaries, lightening:

Lightning is being blamed for an early morning fire at an Aluminum plant in North Peoria.

The (local) Fire Department responded to the business just before 6:40 a.m. one morning during the week of October 20, 2019 to reports lightning struck the building, according to a press release.

An aerial ladder truck was used to gain access to the roof of the building while an engine company used an attack line inside the building.

Crews on the roof had to use a circular saw to cut open part of the roof and extinguish all the fire contained in the insulation in the roof.

Firefighters cleared the scene just before 7:30 a.m.

No injuries were reported and damage is estimated at $4,000.

We are thankful that no one was injured in this incident and the monetary loss was minimal. But, one only has to look to the past to see what a lightning strike can do. We firmly believe that learning from past incidents can prevent current and future incidents.

We consult with many companies on what or how to proceed after a fatality. Our recommendation is to use a past incident as a learning tool for future workers. For instance a smelter asked us to speak to 1000+ workers. Sadly that plant had numerous fatalities over the past number of years. We felt convicted that we had to mention the dead to the living. If not our whole visit would seem shallow or false in a way. So, with every large group we would state the following: “I would be remiss if I did not mention your collegues who were killed within these gates in the past. No doubt many of you here in this room knew those individuals. Maybe you were their friend. I offer my sincere condolences. Companies are always concerned with how to deal with a fatality in the aftermath. Will we offend, anger the deceased family. What I tell companies is that the family is not offended or anger if you use their loved ones accident as a learning tool to prevent a recurrence. But a failure to mention the incident to future workers is an insult to the families. Not mentioning, not using the incidents as a teaching tool is a slap to the face to the family. The family rightfully or wrongly that not talking about the incident is like denying it occurred. So as you sit here today listening to me with heavy hearts on the deaths of your workers. I offer this to you. IF you want to honor your coworkers who died inside these gates. Simply, be safe. Through your safety you can honor those who died here in the past. Thank you.” We have repeated that many times over the years. We believe that.

Back to lightening, in March 24, 1986 an aluminium plant in France exploded destroying the facility and killing several workers. One worker was over 100 meters away when the explosion and subsequent shockwave killed him. 

The investigation report focused on lightening as the cause. We have discussed this incident in the past on our safety presentations. We were honored to have an attendee who worked for the company back in 1986. He told us afterwards that lightening strikes did occur resulting in a power loss. The subsequent power loss brought forth a cascading series of events that resulted in an unexpected molten metal loss in the casthouse resulting in an explosion.

Is your aluminium plant ready for a lightening strike? If not maybe you should be.

Please comment.