First I know it has been a while since I have blogged, I don't think I have ever been this long in between but I have just had a lot going on. I get more calls from family than ever and trying to balance the calls, the web site, the blog, family and my half days with the elderly have all came tumbling down on me like a ton of bricks. On top of all that I have a trip to DC. So you may want to visit The House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday and take a peek the live broadcast or later at the taped version of the Hearing on H.R. 5522, The Combustible Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Act of 2008.
Scheduled Wednesday, March 12th, at 10:30 a.m.
Witnesses List as follows:
Hon. Edwin Foulke
Assistant Secretary of Labor
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Tammy Miser
Sister of Victim of a 2003 Combustible
Dust Explosion in Huntington, Ind.
Amy Spencer
Senior Chemical Engineer
National Fire Protection Association
The Honorable Bill Wright
Interim Chair
U.S. Chemical Safety and
Hazard Investigation Board
Other Witnesses TBA
You can do your part by writing your congress men/women and asking them to support H.R. 5522, The Combustible Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Act of 2008 and signing the petition on Combustible Dust.
There has been plenty in the news and blog sphere about the family of the the Imperial Sugar plant explosion, the lack of attention by OSHA, and what others are doing apart from OSHA to make safer for families to come home.
OSHA's 'invisibility' problem
[The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforces rules that protect America's workers at 7.2 million work sites in this country. It does so with 1,300 compliance officers. Do the math. Then ask the question. If each compliance officer is responsible for an average 5,538 work sites, then how effective are all those workplace safety laws that are on the books? And that's not counting the estimated 300 job vacancies that OSHA apparently has at any one time. The actual average case load per officer, in other words, may be closer to 7,000 workplaces.]
Reducing the 'stupidity'
[He (C. William Kauffman) also wrote that the Feb. 7 blast at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, which has now claimed 12 lives, was "not an act of God, but an act of stupidity." Strong words. Except in his case, he's got the credentials to back them up.]
New Emergency Safety Guidelines in Wake of Sugar Plant Explosion
[...Insurance and Safety Fire commissioner John Oxendine announced new emergency safety regulations which go into effect immediately. Oxendine says all industries in Georgia will now operate under the latest National Fire Prevention Association guidelines, which he says are more current than OSHA's existing rules... Oxendine says all industries in Georgia will now operate under the latest National Fire Prevention Association guidelines, which he says are more current than OSHA's existing rules.]
Burn Victims in Ga. Face Long Recovery
[Two days later, his mother says, doctors had to halt surgery as they worked to repair the second- and third-degree burns over 80 percent of Seckinger's body because his lungs had filled with fluid and his blood pressure plummeted. When his mother got back in to see him, she saw terror in the eyes that held so much hope the days before. "His eyes were open real big and he was just looking at me like, 'Mom, help me.' It was very scary," says Karen Seckinger, still shaken by her son's sudden turn.]
5 Years After a Nightclub Fire, Survivors Struggle to Remake Their Lives
This was sent to me by a friend and is a perfect example of what the survivors will go through. Please this is very graphic so you may choose not to read this and if it is to much discontinue to do so!
[Savagely burned in the fire that incinerated the Station nightclub here five years ago next Wednesday, Linda Fisher has endured a dozen surgeries to salvage her arms, her hands, her face.Ms. Fisher inhaled so much smoke that anguishing night that even now, she gets winded carrying a basket of laundry. Her thick scars keep her from sweating normally, and she has trouble distinguishing hot from cold.]
Bloggers are also taking notice and written several :
The Pump Handle
OSHA Underground
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