Case Study
Topic
Needs of People - Non-Health
Incident / Exercise
Incident: Explosion and Fire at Buncefield Oil Terminal, 11
December 2005
Background and Context
In the early hours of Sunday 11 December 2005, explosions at Buncefield Oil
Storage Depot, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire resulted in a large fire,
which engulfed a high proportion of the site.
Over 40 people were injured; there were no fatalities. Significant damage
occurred to both commercial and residential properties in the vicinity and
2,000 people were evacuated on emergency service advice.
The fire burned for several days, destroying most of the site and emitting
large clouds of black smoke into the atmosphere. Over 16,000 employees
within the adjacent Maylands Industrial Area were unable to access work and
92 businesses were displaced for more than one week. 17 were forced to
permanently relocate.
Overall, the explosion cost local businesses more than £70 million in lost
stock, lost revenue.
The explosion damaged over 300 residential properties, as well as business
premises, and in the immediate aftermath 2,000 people were evacuated.
Reception centres, established by Dacorum Borough Council, initially cared
for approximately 350 people, but numbers declined over time.
How the Topic was Handled
In the short term, the needs of individuals were essentially practical.
Items such as clothing, nappies, toiletries and food were provided and
local supermarkets also played a key role in terms of donating, collecting
and distributing various supplies. The Jarman Park leisure complex also
provided free entertainment for children in their cinema and bowling alley.
As the incident occurred in the run up to Christmas, there was a need for
immediate financial help. However, the short term needs of individuals
covered a particularly wide range of different issues. For example,
uninsured loss, financial support, small cash sums, Christmas presents for
a children’s home, bed linen, curtains and money for food. In particular,
immediate support was needed by casual workers who had lost their source of
employment. The scale of the impact on casual workers was hard to ascertain
as they proved difficult to track.
Accommodation was also a key issue. Overnight accommodation in hotels was
required for those who could not return home and temporary furnished
housing, in particular, was in short supply, which meant that additional
furniture and bedding were required. In the longer term, the needs for
individuals covered a similar wide range of issues. For example, uninsured
loss, replacement of work tools and equipment for self employed workers,
retraining, smalls grants for redecorating children’s bedrooms, replacement
of one elderly resident’s aviary, cost of private counselling, help paying
debts, higher heating bills due to damaged housing and replacement of
treasured items.
Individuals also had a need to talk about the incident and there was
considerable demand for emotional support in the form of “skilled
listeners”. In particular, it was found that many elderly people were keen
to speak about their experiences, and a number of children also required
longer term counselling. Therefore, the key task for the Community Recovery
Taskforce was to provide a mechanism for people to talk about the incident.
As well as a series of events, such as art competitions and reminiscence
projects, the first anniversary was used as an opportunity for both the
community and individuals to reflect back on the incident.
There was also a considerable need for information provision. To meet this
need, a number of community forums were particularly useful and also
provided an opportunity for individuals to ask questions of the Buncefield
Investigation Board. The overall co-ordination of the community recovery
was undertaken by the Community Recovery Taskforce and involved a number of
key players from a wide range of different agencies. However, it was
essential that locally based agencies, such as Dacorum Borough Council,
Dacorum Community Trust, Citizens Advice Bureau and Churches Together were
involved. It is estimated that the community recovery cost in the region of
£1m. In terms of expenditure, it has so far cost the Borough Council around
£500,000, whilst the Mayors Recovery Fund has raised around £420,000. It is
important to note that the community recovery is still very much ongoing,
over a year and a half later.
Lessons Identified
Dacorum Borough Council has identified a number of key lessons regarding
the needs of individuals.
Firstly, it is important to evaluate the exact needs of individuals. To
this end, volunteers could have been utilised to knock on the doors of
residential properties in the affected area, to ask residents, face to
face, what help they required.
Secondly, the sharing of information between all agencies was essential. No
one agency had all the answers and it was important that a number of
different perspectives were taken into account. In particular, the
voluntary agencies were able to see issues that the official agencies could
not.
Thirdly, for the Community Recovery Taskforce, the process of obtaining
additional funding for the community recovery, such as that available
through the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), proved to be
particularly resource intensive and involved a considerable amount of
effort.
Contacts for Further Information
Jacquie Campbell, Chair of the
Buncefield Community Recovery Taskforce.
Emergency Planning Team,
Hertfordshire County Council.
Additional Documents
The Buncefield
Multi-Agency Recovery Plan[PDF] (version 1.1) includes
considerable detail about the establishment of the Community Recovery
Taskforce and particularly the work undertaken in the weeks and months
immediately following the incident.
The Report of the
Buncefield Community Recovery Taskforce[PDF](December
2005 – May 2007) provides a comprehensive overview of the community
recovery to date.
The
Buncefield Social Impact Assessment - Final Report[PDF]
(and
Annexes[PDF]), January 2007 was a study commissioned to
draw together, from an external and independent point of view, the scale
and range of the social impacts of the Buncefield incident.
