KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Refinery drill takes Shreveport responders by surprise

Refinery drill takes Shreveport responders by surprise

By Katrina Webber - email | bio

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) - An unexpected training drill involving a Shreveport refinery took police and firefighters by surprise Friday morning.

Dispatchers put out the call around 9:30 a. m., telling officers and firefighters to assemble at various locations on Jewella Avenue near the Calumet refinery.

About a half dozen police cars soon arrived in the area and began to block off that street between Midway Avenue and Prentiss Street.  In one area, officers also used crime scene tape to shut it down.

Drivers were re-routed onto neighborhood streets during the closure.

Workers with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality also gathered in the area.

Two unidentified DEQ employees told KSLA News 12 they were expecting the drill, organized by the Enviornmental Protection Agency, to include some sort of simulated chemical spill at one of the plant's Jewella Avenue entrances.

They said they were at the scene to monitor how local fire department personnel and police would react to an emergency of that sort, including how long it took them to respond.

The drill, indeed, took those responders by surprise.  When KSLA News 12 contacted Fire Chief Brian Crawford, he told KSLA News 12 he was not aware of any drill. 

Officers at the scene also said they had no advance knowledge of the drill and were not sure what was going on.

A news release from Calumet later cleared things up.  It says the drill was conducted in accordance with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which determined the guidelines for emergency response programs and ongoing drills.

According to the release, the drill was to include a simulated spill of 2100 gallons of gasoline.  Although the fire department was alerted to the situation, firefighters were not required to be present.

The drill itself began at 8:30 a. m. and lasted about 90 minutes.  However, the street wasn't shut down until about one hour after the drill began, and it remained closed for only about 30 minutes.