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Chemical leak at Apple's NC Data Center
Around 2:00 PM EDT on Monday, Apple's Maiden, NC, data center suffered a chlorine leak that injured five people. It remains unclear whether the injured were Apple data center employees or construction workers.
Last week, a fire broke out among the solar panels atop the Mesa, AZ, sapphire manufacturing facility that Apple recently bought from GT Advanced. No injuries were reported.
The two events do not seem to be linked, except that Apple is having a bad run of luck with site safety.
Chlorine Gas Leak at Apple Data Center Puts 5 in Hospital
El Reg reports
Emergency crews received a call [June 1] about 2pm local time from the Apple facility on Startown Road, in Maiden, North Carolina. Local news helicopters captured footage of people being given medical attention and oxygen masks outside the facility.
The Catawba emergency services said initially two unknown chemicals were involved in the alert, later stating that it was a chlorine gas leak.
[...] It is speculated that the chlorine was a key component in the facility's water-cleaning facility, perhaps for its water-cooled components.
Original Submissions
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Tuesday June 02 2015, @06:33PM
I worked as a firefighter in Henrietta, NY (near Rochester), for four years. As part of that I was certified to do HAZMAT operations, and got a real good look at how much that stuff rolls throughout the country, as we have I-90. Accidents were rare, but we had be really ware. For those unfamiliar with the area, until relatively recently, we had both Kodak and Xerox as the big local companies, and both of them had internal fire departments to handle their own HAZMAT stuff, as well as the Monroe County HAZMAT Operations Team (locally known in the emergency response community as HAZMAT 8). One of the semi-decent things to come out the federal government was the NIMS standardization stuff which allowed easy activation of resources in the field; if an EMT sees a HAZMAT operation, there is a plan in place to get the right people to the right place, begin evacation, and such.
By federal law, employees have a right to know what HAZMAT is located in their work place; you'd be shocked that almost every large business at least has something classified by OHS as HAZMAT, and the data sheets can be a fascinating read to learn in interesting new ways to die.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 02 2015, @08:31PM
you'd be shocked that almost every large business at least has something classified by OHS as HAZMAT
I've read the ones at work; I believe whats going on is you're required to list your carpet cleaner and tile cleaner and window cleaner buckets and lawnmower gasoline to prove you're serious and at least putting forth a reasonable effort. If you don't list anything, surely you're lying and actually do have barrels of unlisted stuff.
Its outsourced online and anyone can go to "some site", enter location code (looks like a CC number?) and read about all my employers stuff. Its a pretty cool, obvious in retrospect, idea. They collect all the worlds MSDS, more or less, and the building super just clicks checkboxes and magically we get a giant report of all the onsite MSDS. That is a very wise online business. I was impressed. Works well too.
There is, of course, safety fatigue danger... We have a MSDS for a couple gallons of latex wall paint in the building super's closet? Really? The security guard has a bottle of sunscreen too, if we're going to get that picky about this.
The contents of the department fridge scare me more than the contents of the building super's closet.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday June 02 2015, @08:56PM
That sounds a bit excessive. Reporting requirements for a given substance are set by OHS; you only need the MSDS if you have more than X on site ...
Still always moving