Monday, January 17, 2000
'Hazmat' director is a veteran
Retiring from fire division, Perry to head Greater Cincinnati unit
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It was too good to pass up: fire chief of Fargo, N.D.
Top dog. Numero Uno. The Chief.
Charlie Perry, retiring this month from middle management in Cincinnati's Fire Division, wanted something to do “and after all, there aren't many chief's jobs open.”
The 51-year-old Pleasant Ridge resident applied.
Alerted to his intentions, friends began telling him about the Dakotas: endless plains, floods, winters and Moorhead, Minn., for a hot night out.
Second thoughts paid off for the Tristate.
Mr. Perry took his name out of competition and pursued directorship of the Greater Cincinnati Hazardous Materials (Hazmat) Unit.
He won the job and takes over Tuesday at the publicly funded nonprofit group.
Mr. Perry's previous assignment was district chief of Cincinnati's environmental crimes unit and hazmat coordinator; he commanded firefighters in moon suits.
Now, he oversees a hazmat organization of more than 100 men and women drawn primarily from fire departments and disaster response agencies in Hamilton, Kenton and Boone counties.
They wear moon suits, too, when local authorities in the Tristate request help at spills or other hazmat accidents. Supporting them are another half-dozen volunteers, all active and retired chemists from industry and government.
Mr. Perry's appointment “delighted” Kathleen Brinkman, the assistant U.S. attorney in Cincinnati who convenes the local environmental crimes task force. She worked with then-Chief Perry and is eager for him to share his evidence-preservation and other hazmat expertise with members of the unit.
That's on the agenda, Mr. Perry said, as is his pet project: using weatherband radios to supplement civil defense sirens as a hazmat warning system in homes around such “target areas” as chemical plants and interstates where tankers haul hazardous and toxic materials.
Rather than rely on the patchy coverage of sirens, Mr. Perry wants to use the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weatherband to alert residents inside their homes to a hazardous materials incident.
Weatherband radios can be purchased with remotely triggered sirens and voice channels that residents can turn to for immediate, accurate information.
Combined with AM and FM radio and television broadcasts, those messages would be more informative than sirens, which cover broader areas than those affected by a spill but don't distinguish between weather and chemical emergencies.
Mr. Perry said he will ask NOAA and Ohio emergency management officials to help set up this innovative warning system.
He also will seek grants and industry underwriting to provide free weatherband radios for residents who cannot afford them.
“That would be really cool if we could pull that off,” he said in a recent interview.
Mr. Perry said the parent company of Radio Shack rebuffed initial, recent approaches but he hoped other weatherband radio suppliers would be more sympathetic.
His hazmat unit is funded by Hamilton, Clermont, Boone, Kenton, Dearborn and Franklin counties in the Tristate as well as various municipalities.
Mr. Perry is the only full-time employee. Four part-time duty officers take turns covering weekends. Everyone else is a volunteer, even lawyer Robert J. Welch Jr., the son and nephew of firefighters “but only a "grunt' in the unit.”
Mr. Perry eschewed any commanding role for the Greater Cincinnati Hazardous Materials Unit. Rather, it is a decade-old service organization and “fire departments are our customers.”
When called, he and his colleagues “plug in” with whatever local official is in charge at a hazmat incident. Usually, it's a firefighter; frequently, it's in a community that lacks a hazmat unit.
If necessary, the Greater Cincinnati unit's “Hazmat 43” mobile command post can be brought into action from the unit's base at a Forest Park fire station. The custom 40-foot trailer and hauler carries computers, communications equipment and a library.
In addition to helping cope with the spill or leak, Mr. Perry said, unit members can act as liaison among fire fighters and U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on-scene hazmat coordinators.
His appointment also pleased Jim Crawford, an on-scene hazmat coordinator for Ohio EPA. “He doesn't hesitate to call in the resources he needs and that's a big thing in hazmat response. ... He's not the kind of guy who thinks he knows everything.”
What Mr. Perry doesn't know can be found in his omnipresent little black book, Mr. Crawford added.
Mr. Perry said he plans new training for his unit, further efforts to win grants for training and equipment, and standard operating procedures where none exist.
The unit was organized to obviate the need for every fire department to have a hazmat group or, in its absence, to do without.
That hasn't changed, Mr. Perry said, and, after almost 27 years on the Cincinnati Fire Division, he's no stranger to the tasks or colleagues who respond.
“I love it,” he said. “This is a fantastic group of people.”
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