Feb. 11--With the massive warehouse fire that started late Saturday morning at Georgia Ports' Ocean Terminal finally extinguished, fire officials have turned their attention to investigating the cause of the blaze while ports and Coast Guard officials take on the arduous task of cleanup.
"Safety has always been our first and foremost concern," GPA Chief Operating Officer Griff Lynch said at a Monday afternoon news conference.
"We have worked very closely with Savannah Fire, the state Environmental Protection Division, the EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard. We brought in air monitoring equipment, not only for the terminal but the surrounding communities as well."
Lynch said the federal Environmental Protection Agency has said there were no significant health impacts on the terminal or outside the gates.
That doesn't mean GPA and its partners aren't facing a massive cleanup.
"We have multiple crews out here, more than 100 people on the ground, actively working to assess the situation," he said, adding that it is too early to determine how long the cleanup will take.
Nor did he have a definitive damage estimate, although some numbers were available.
"We had approximately 1,800 tons of rubber destroyed, or about a third of total in the warehouse," he said, adding that at least 100,000 square feet in the north portion of the warehouse was a total loss but it appeared the southern half may be salvageable. A concrete block firewall separated the two sections.
The value of all the rubber in the warehouse was approximately $4 million, Lynch said.
No cause for the fire has been determined.
"We know the state fire marshal is on site and the investigation is underway," Lynch said.
Lynch confirmed that there were GPA personnel in the warehouse Saturday morning, but none on site when the fire started.
"We had people working in the warehouse Saturday morning -- we work seven days a week, 24 hours a day," he said, adding he didn't know how long they had been out of the warehouse when the fire started.
Meanwhile, Lynch said, it's business as usual at Georgia Ports.
"We have a total of 1.4 million square feet of warehouse on this facility, with about 100,000 square feet of that impacted," he said. "That's around 7 percent of our total storage capability. We don't think that will affect our business, as we have alternative sites for warehousing the rubber that can be saved and more that will be coming in."
Savannah Fire & Emergency Services spokesman Mark Keller said his organization "ceased fire operations Monday morning, with one company remaining on site through the day monitoring for flare ups."
Fire investigators are on site, doing information gathering, conducting interviews and canvassing the property, Keller said.
"At this point, they have not gone into the rubble on the affected side, although they have been inside the unaffected part of the warehouse," he said, adding that any questions regarding the cause of the fire would be premature.
It may be some time before investigators are able to pinpoint how and where the fire started, he said.
"They will make their way to it, then through it, when they can," he said. "You can't put a watch on it."
He confirmed that multiple sets of firefighters' turnout gear were contaminated with melted rubber, as was a significant amount of hose.
Any firefighters close to the fire were on breathing apparatus and reported no breathing problems, he said.
Keller said the industrial firefighting equipment his department received through a port security grant played a major role in getting the fire under control.
"It's a pump that's submersible in the river, with large hoses and powerful nozzles that allow us to put 6,000 gallons per minute on the fire, compared to the standard 500 gallons per minute."
U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Joseph Loring, Captain of the Port, said his crews placed absorbent booms around the drains early on to catch the firefighting water.
"Then, as a secondary measure, we placed hard booms completely around the pier to cover outfalls. Inside the hard booms, we placed absorbent material. It's worked very well."
The runoff contains very sticky, viscous material, Loring said, so it was important to get it contained quickly.
Copyright 2014 - Savannah Morning News, Ga.
