• F7. Assess population needs, assets and capacities that affect communities’ health
Campbell University sits right off Highway 421 which is a major truck route for all trucks including those that carry hazardous materials. Parts of Campbell University sit just feet away from busy Highway 421. In the case of an accident where a hazardous material could spill or catch on fire, it could vastly impact Campbell’s staff and student’s health. Our group’s job was to inventory the chemicals that travel by campus on 421 and measure the risk of hazard to Campbell’s staff and students.
Trucks carrying hazardous materials are required by law if carrying a certain amount of those hazardous materials their truck must be labelled with a placard containing that hazardous material’s unique identification number, class and hazard. Each chemical is assigned a class 1-8 classifying whether the chemical has qualities such as flammable, combustible, corrosive, or is a solid, liquid or gas. A pictogram of the hazard is often also found on the placard depicting the type of hazards associated with that chemical such as toxicity, flammability or corrosivity.
When researching we found a paper done by our preceptor in Harnett county of all the highways. Based upon his paper we decided that we would include a 2-mile radius from the center of Campbell’s campus. The idea behind this radius was that none of the chemicals inventoried in all of Harnett county required evacuation of more than 2 miles. In a 2-mile radius of Campbell University is US highways 421 and 27. We decided that we would focus on counting on these two highways. Based upon prior knowledge regarding truck drivers and traffic we believed that a lot of trucks would be travelling overnight, so we thought it was important to count for 24 hours. We randomly split the 24 hours into 2- and 3-hour increments randomized over one week. Our group of 5 split up and counted among these 2-3-hour increments over the 24-hour period. Each period had at least two people counting, one to be watching at all times and one to record the truck placard number. We decided to only count on highway 421 because of safety and permission reasons, our location was at the Exxon by the Campbell sign. We chose to only count on 421 because of our small group size, safety, and time constraints. While counting we wrote down the placard ID number the class, color and hazard if visible or noted for every tanker seen.
Overall the most frequent trucks we saw were unlabeled, methanol, liquefied petroleum gas, diesel fuel, fusel oil, aviation fuel, gasoline, and elevated temperature liquids. The most frequent class of liquid was gases, followed by flammable and combustible liquids. In our analysis we determined that most of the hazardous materials if spilled would not require evacuation of an of Campbell University except for Liquefied Petroleum gas. If Liquefied Petroleum gas were to spill it would require a half of a mile evacuation which would include most of Campbell’s Main campus if it spilled anywhere on 421 near Campbell. From a general spill of liquefied petroleum gas vapors may cause dizziness and asphyxiation without warning, and contact with the gas could cause burns, severe injury or frostbite, if ignited these symptoms would be exacerbated and cause a one mile radius from the spill to be evacuated. A lot of the chemicals seen require that a half a mile radius be evacuated if a spill becomes ignited which would include most of Campbell University. Methanol when ignited could cause vapors in the air that may irritate and burn the skin or eyes, be toxic, and cause suffocation or dizziness if inhaled. Gasoline and oils all have the potential to cause burns when ignited and can be toxic at high enough concentrations in the air. All information regarding spill evacuations and health hazards was taken from the 2016 Emergency Response Guide which is used by first responders.
Overall, we did not see much of a threat to the staff and students of Campbell University from hazardous chemicals travelling along 421. The only exception being that if the chemicals were ignited that they cause evacuation. The likelihood that the trucks carrying the chemicals would spill and be ignited in the mile stretch of 421 that would impact Campbell is slim but possible. We do believe however Campbell University should be prepared to evacuate if such a circumstance arose. Campbell should be prepared to evacuate students safely and quickly in the case of an ignited spill. In order to know the full threat to Campbell University, hazardous materials at facilities and the small airport should be considered as well as trucks traveling on highway 27. In the future it would be wise to count for longer than 24 hours throughout different weeks, months and seasons. This would increase sample size and make the hazardous materials inventoried more representative of what is actually going through campus and could have impacts to campus.
