This guide will help local communities prepare for potential accidents involving hazardous materials. Describes how to form a local planning team, find a team leader, identify and analyze hazards, identify existing response equipment and personnel, write a plan, and keep the plan up to date. Will help communities, small and large alike, to make the impact of accidents less severe. Appendices: implementing Title III; list of acronyms and recognized abbreviations; glossary; criteria for assessing state and local preparedness; bibliography. Also includes a 32-page report, "What's Happening with Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Teams," excerpts from "Energy and Transportation Network News" (April 1994).

Does the identification number 60 indicate a toxic substance or a flammable solid, in the molten state at an elevated temperature? Does the identification number 1035 indicate ethane or butane? What is the difference between natural gas transmission pipelines and natural gas distribution pipelines? If you came upon an overturned truck on the highway that was leaking, would you be able to identify if it was hazardous and know what steps to take? Questions like these and more are answered in the Emergency Response Guidebook. Learn how to identify symbols for and vehicles carrying toxic, flammable, explosive, radioactive, or otherwise harmful substances and how to respond once an incident involving those substances has been identified. Always be prepared in situations that are unfamiliar and dangerous and know how to rectify them. Keeping this guide around at all times will ensure that, if you were to come upon a transportation situation involving hazardous substances or dangerous goods, you will be able to help keep others and yourself out of danger. With color-coded pages for quick and easy reference, this is the official manual used by first responders in the United States and Canada for transportation incidents involving dangerous goods or hazardous materials.

"This Guide presents comprehensive, step-by-step guidance on assessing hazardous materials emergency response needs at state, regional, and local levels; matching state, regional, and local capabilities with potential emergencies involving different types of hazardous materials; and assessing how quickly resources can be brought to bear in an emergency. The methodology described in the Guide is designed to be scalable, allowing the implementation results to be aggregated at the local level up through regional, state, and national levels. Also, the Guide is designed to connect as many components as possible to already-established standards, guidelines, regulations, and laws, so that the Guide will remain current as these underlying components are updated. In addition, the Guide discusses appropriate means for maintaining currency of the information over time. The Guide and accompanying spreadsheet tool (on the attached CD-ROM), which leads planners through the assessment process, will be most useful for local jurisdictions that have limited resources and expertise in hazardous materials emergency response planning."--Publisher's description.

Assists the first responders to incidents involving hazardous materials. Provides uniform guidance for emergency care of chemically contaminated patients & basic information critical to the planning & implementation of emergency medical services' strategies. Topics covered include: hazard recognition, principles of toxicology, personnel protection & safety principles, respiratory protection, site control, decontamination of EMS personnel, assessment of patients, communications, patient treatment & transport, & much more. Illustrated.

Meant to aid State & local emergency managers in their efforts to develop & maintain a viable all-hazard emergency operations plan. This guide clarifies the preparedness, response, & short-term recovery planning elements that warrant inclusion in emergency operations plans. It offers the best judgment & recommendations on how to deal with the entire planning process -- from forming a planning team to writing the plan. Specific topics of discussion include: preliminary considerations, the planning process, emergency operations plan format, basic plan content, functional annex content, hazard-unique planning, & linking Federal & State operations.