Yesterday’s evacuation of Depatman Doubs outside of Le Sel, LA was the result of alarms in the neighborhood and along the fence line at the near by ChlorAlk plant reporting a large chlorine gas release. As with the radiation alerts last week in Georgia, the alert and evacuation were based upon false information provided by the detectors, according to Sueur Hargreaves-Bird, spokesperson for ChlorAlk. “We know that we did not have even a small release of chlorine yesterday at the facility, so the alarms must have gone off in error,” Ms Hargreaves-Bird told reporters.
Kurt E Sabersky, a community organizer in Depatman Doubs, objected to the comparison with the nuclear facility incident. “There is nothing in Doubs worth stealing, so this was not a grand criminal conspiracy like that seen in Georgia,” Sabersky explained. “Doubs is a working-class neighborhood filled with 2nd and 3rd generation salt miners.” He has no idea why someone would have decided to attack this system.
Kurt reminded reporters that the sensors and alarms responsible for yesterday’s evacuation were the result of a 2015 chlorine release at the ChlorAlk plant that injured hundreds of Doubs residents and killed 13. “The court ordered ChlorAlk to install the network of sensors and alarms, as well as fund the quarterly evacuation drills to improve the emergency response capability of the neighborhood,” Sabersky explained.
The evacuations yesterday proceeded smoothly, with residents wearing their escape respirators and block captains with full-face respirators supervising the operations. “The evacuation was conducted in a professional manner, as you would expect with the number of neighborhood drills that have been conduct,” Sheriff Justice told reporters, “My deputies had to do little more than provide traffic direction to keep outsiders off the evacuation route.”
The National Critical Infrastructure Security Operations Center (CI-SOC) and the Federal Bureau of Inquiry are cooperating on the investigation of the incident. “Since the sensor and alarm network was mandated by a Federal Judge and overseen by the Federal Emergency Grant Administration (FEGA), the apparent attack on the system falls under federal jurisdiction,” explained Johnathan Quest, FBI spokesperson.
General Buck Turgidson, CI-SOC Director, told reporters via a video link that it does not appear that this incident was related to last weeks hack in Georgia. “Two entirely different types of sensor and monitoring platforms were used by the two system,” Turgidson said.
A technician working with Dragonfire Cyber, who is not authorized to speak to the press, told me that the sensors in yesterday’s incident did not appear to have been the source of access to the system. “All of the sensor logs show typical background chlorine readings for the facility and neighborhood,” she said, “Investigators are now looking at the monitoring station that controls the alarm network.”
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