There were some tense moments this morning at Ethicon in Cornelia when the plant had to evacuate due to a hydrogen alarm.
Cornelia and Demorest firefighters, along with Habersham County Emergency Services, arrived at the plant on Old Historic U.S. 441 around 11:45 a.m. Monday. They met with Ethicon’s Emergency Response Team and engineers and tracked the problem to a Monomer room where processes occur to make Polymer. “Hydrogen is not used in the plant but is a byproduct of some of the chemical processes that take place,” explains Cornelia Fire Marshal Josh Hazle.
Plant personnel stopped the processes, and fire personnel entered the building with two HazMat technicians to read levels.
“The levels had already started to drop from when the alarm first went off,” Hazle says. They aired out the building, and within 30-45 minutes, the levels were back down to zero. Fire personnel stayed on the scene until just after 2 pm to assist plant personnel and ensure levels did not rise above safe limits.
Firefighters gave the all-clear around 2 p.m., and employees were allowed back into the building. Maintenance personnel, engineers, and ERT members continued working to find the cause of the problem before plant processes resumed.
Hazle says the Monomer room was the only “area of concern,” and workers were not allowed in the building while lowering the levels out of an abundance of caution.
The Fire Marshal says, “At no time was there a danger to the public or anyone on site outside the plant.”
