Cincinnati firefighters arrived 13 minutes after Hilton Davis declared an internal emergency at 11:48 p.m. at the Langdon Farm Road pigment and dye plant.
Authorities evacuated about 75 employees and firefighters went door-to-door warning residents to close windows and doors, shut off air conditioners and stay inside until the cloud dissipated.
"I saw it. It was like one of those horror movies where you have a cloud hanging over a building," said Angela Cook of Elbrook Avenue, a 33-year-old mother of three. "Those firefighters came banging on my door with gas masks on. I was afraid to go outside at all today."
Civil-defense sirens were sounded at 1:50 a.m. - two hours after the emergency began - alerting residents far beyond the area at risk of the slowly moving cloud.
By Tuesday afternoon, Hilton Davis investigators had not yet determined how two pinhole leaks got in a pipe, which connected a storage tank and production vessel, said Tom Eickhoff, vice president of safety, health and environment. Fifty-five gallons of oleum escaped.
Oleum is a liquid sulfuric acid used to make food coloring. When exposed to air, it forms noxious white mist, which is an eye and respiratory irritant.
There were no injuries and no evacuations but plenty of questions from neighbors, officials and county residents.
Internal response
Hilton Davis declared an internal emergency at 11:48 p.m. Monday when workers noticed oleum fumes escaping from a pipe, said Tom Eickhoff, vice president of safety, health and environment.
Company policy calls for Hilton Davis' emergency response team to handle the problem and alert authorities only if it's deemed too large, a decision made after weighing the extent of the spill, the nature of the material spilled and similar factors, he said. Mr. Eickhoff didn't know Tuesday evening whether anyone from Hilton Davis called authorities.
An anonymous caller alerted police to the fumes via a non-emergency number at 11:53 p.m., a Cincinnati police supervisor said. Firefighters were dispatched at 11:55 p.m. and arrived on the scene at 12:01 a.m. Cincinnati Fire Division Chief Robert Wright said the division's environmental crimes unit is investigating whether Hilton Davis acted properly.
Cincinnati City Council members also agreed Tuesday to ask city administrators to investigate the company's emergency-response plan, the city's role in monitoring companies that handle hazardous materials, the health risks Hilton Davis' neighbors face and whether the county's emergency-alert system is adequate.
Whole county alerted
When Hamilton County's emergency alert plan was activated, civil-defense sirens blasted throughout the county, even though officials considered only residents close to the plant to be at risk.
The system worked as it was supposed to, officials said.
But the scare left many panicked residents miles away from the plant demanding change.
Some wondered why the sirens sounded - waking up residents as far away as Harrison, Westwood and Blue Ash. Hamilton County and Cincinnati police dispatchers said they were overwhelmed with calls from confused residents who thought the sirens went off only to warn people about storms.
Hamilton County dispatchers normally field about 30 calls an hour at night. From 1:30 to 2:30 Tuesday morning, they received 474 calls from residents wondering why the sirens were sounding.
Communications supervisor Andrew Knapp urged residents in the future to monitor radios and televisions when the sirens sound. Authorities defended the system, saying alerting too many people is better than not enough. Hamilton County has 175 outdoor emergency sirens that cannot be sounded independently.
"We received a lot of criticism because all the sirens in Hamilton County sounded," Golf Manor Fire Chief Greg Ballman said. "But we also got a lot of calls from people who said they didn't hear the sirens, and they found out about it because a friend or a relative who heard the sirens somewhere else called. That's great then, because it may be a back-door approach but the system works."
Neighbors skeptical
Tuesday's spill wasn't Hilton Davis' first environmental mishap.
About a decade ago, neighbors reported a green goo seeping from a hillside near Hilton Davis, said Beth Gianforcaro, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental investigators determined the substance came from four lagoons the company had built to hold waste water from its dye process.
Those clean-up projects - which included dredging the lagoons, extracting volatile chemicals and filling, capping and reseeding them - should be done in April 1998, Ms. Gianforcaro said.
The company since has had at least 10 violations reported, from improper inspections to waste-water discharge.
It ranks third of 120 Hamilton County facilities and 31st of 1,632 facilities in Ohio in total toxic releases, releasing about 1.06 million pounds of toxic materials in 1994, Ms. Gianforcaro said.
Residents Tuesday afternoon talked about their safety, doubting that future spills will end as uneventfully.
"You never know what could blow over there," said Butch Roland, a Yosemite Drive resident who lives within sight of the plant. "When it comes to public safety, they've got to understand that they're in a residential area. They should move someplace else."
HOW COUNTY SIREN SYSTEM WORKS
