A Dripping Drum at 2 a.m.
At 2:10 a.m. you pull into a rest area 60 miles into an overnight run. The trailer holds twelve 55-gallon drums of sulfuric acid solution (Class 8, PG II) on the floor and 500 lb of Class 3 flammable liquid in pails on the nose. Walking back to check the load, you smell a sharp odor and see a two-foot-wide wet patch on the floor under the rearmost drum, with a slow drip from the bung. A small puddle is spreading toward the trailer doors. The wind is carrying the smell toward the restroom building 150 feet away, where you can see three or four people. You have your phone, the shipping papers, and the emergency response information packet. The trailer is placarded CORROSIVE and FLAMMABLE.
1. Give your immediate actions in priority order, and explain why each comes where it does.
Read the worked answer
1. Protect yourself first. Do not climb in, do not try to re-tighten the bung, do not tip the drum upright. A splash to the face at 2 a.m., 60 miles from help, is a worse outcome than a 55-gallon drum losing its contents. Move upwind and uphill of the trailer and stay out of the drip path.
2. Keep people away. Get the occupants out of the restroom and move anyone in the area upwind, past the building if possible. Corrosive vapor and mist injure eyes and lungs, and the wind is pointing straight at the one place people are standing.
3. Call 911. You have a leaking Class 8 acid near the public. Give the dispatcher your exact location, that it is sulfuric acid, roughly how much, that it is dripping inside a trailer, and the wind direction.
4. Call the emergency response number on the papers, then your carrier's after-hours line. They will advise on the package and on whether the load can be moved.
5. Do not move the truck unless the leak is fully contained and moving removes a greater hazard. Here the leak is inside the trailer and moving will slosh the puddle toward the doors and the Class 3 pails.
2. What information do you hand the responding fire department, and where does each item come from?
Read the worked answer
Everything they need is on two documents you already have. Read it to them rather than summarizing.
From the shipping paper:
- Proper shipping name: Sulfuric acid (with the concentration qualifier as shown)
- Hazard class: 8, with packing group II
- UN1830
- Total quantity: 12 × 55-gallon drums, plus the 500 lb of Class 3 material on the nose
- Carrier name and the consignee
From the emergency response information:
- The ERG guide number for the material, so the incident commander can pull the isolation distance and protective clothing requirements himself rather than taking your word for it
- The 24-hour emergency response telephone number and the contract/account number
From your own observation - and say it as observation, not as fact:
- One drum, the rearmost, dripping from the bung; a two-foot wet patch and a spreading puddle
- The leak is inside an enclosed trailer, doors at the rear
- Wind direction toward the restroom building 150 feet away
- The Class 3 pails are on the nose, not currently involved
Do not guess at the concentration or at how much has leaked. Give them the range you can actually see and let them size it.
3. After the drum is off-loaded, the consignee says to wrap it in a tarp, put it back on, and finish the delivery so the paperwork stays clean. How do you handle that?
Read the worked answer
No. A tarp is not a package.
The leaking drum has to be dealt with as a damaged packaging: the contents transferred to a salvage drum or overpacked by people qualified to do it, wearing the right PPE, with the residue container marked and labeled correctly. Wrapping it and driving on means a continuing release inside an enclosed trailer for the next several hundred miles, corrosion damage to the floor and to the freight around it, and a placarded vehicle that is actively leaking when it arrives.
There are also records questions you should not paper over:
- Do not sign a clean delivery receipt for freight you know arrived leaking. Note the damage and the quantity on the receipt and keep a copy.
- The trailer needs to be inspected and, if acid is on the floor or the structure, decontaminated before it carries anything else.
- The carrier has incident reporting obligations; give your dispatcher the facts while they are fresh - time, location, what you saw, who you called, what the responders did.
Finish the delivery with the remaining drums if the trailer passes inspection. The leaking drum goes to a facility that can legally handle it, not into a tarp.