In addition to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and OSHA announcing that they are investigating the deadly chemical release at the PEMEX plant in Deer Park, more details have emerged as to why the public alert systems failed during the incident.
For the first :45 minutes of the tragedy that killed 2 people, and injured 35 others, most of the public had no idea what was going on.
In the aftermath, our tv partner KPRC 2 Investigates, learned that the City of Deer Park attributed its notification issues to Code Red, a third-party alert provider.
KPRC spoke with a city spokesperson, who declined to be recorded, and they said that Code Red’s text notification technology malfunctioned during the crisis, leading to late and confusing messages for many residents, with some receiving no alerts at all.
If that's not bad enough, the CAER line which is an industry-specific alert system for the public, also failed to provide timely information.