A massive over response by everyone. Why would workers at this plant even call for help? Anyone working with peppers knows the all too familiar symptoms. If its too bad, then clear out the work area and wait for the chile dust to settle. I’d guess they called 911 to get an ambulance for the one lady with a prior breathing problem. Then somebody at 911 overreacted with a hazmat call. :rolleyes:
It’s habaneros, a little bit more powerful than your typical chile powder.
If it’s causing bloody noses, I think it was a good call. Think what that could do to lung tissue.
Same thing happened at a Fed Ex plant a few months ago. I guess it’s 9/11 hysteria. OMG my eyes and throat are burning. Call out the hazmat team.
They should have visited my grandmother’s kitchen when she was preparing peppers. Burning eyes and mild nose irritation told you something good was going to be served very soon.
I haven’t cooked with Habaneros before. Sounds more potent than I realized. Getting that in the AC vents wouldn’t be fun. They probably cleared that plant for at least a day.
Hardly hysteria to call for help when exposed to unknown chemical irritants.
Maybe it’s hot peppers. Maybe it’s sarin. You wouldn’t know until it was too late.
Yeah, the Fed Ex example isn’t a good one. They never know what materials are in those boxes. Calling someone to check it out makes sense.
The chile plant is different because the workers know what they are working with. They probably have mild eye and nose burning every day at work. The Habaneros made it much worse, but they knew what was happening. I’m surprised the managers didn’t have a plan to air out the plant with fans.
OK, so they knew what was happening. That doesn’t change the fact that they were in fact dealing with a chemical irritant that had gotten into the air. Just because you know what a problem is, doesn’t mean it’s solved.
I don’t know about the outdoor air, but inside the building they could probably deal with it the same way they deal with asbestos abatement. Set up air filters that suck clean air into the building, through a HEPA filter and then exhaust it to the outdoors. A couple of those running for a few hours or overnight would probably have helped quite a bit. Maybe a few people mopping the place and then in the morning make a decision about cleaning the ductwork.
You really don’t want to just jettison that stuff right out into the air. We have a spice place a few blocks away from where I work (I can almost guarantee you’ve drank, eaten or smoked something from this place) and we can often smell what they working on. Oregano, fennel, basil…I’d hate to be downwind from habanero powder.
Exactly. It’s not exactly fair to laugh at these people because they worked with the stuff and should have known what was choking them. I don’t know what the rules are for “chemical” cleanup in that area or at that specific plant, but it’s entirely possible that internal or external regulations dictate that a “spill” over a certain size must be dealt with by the pros so it doesn’t get into the water supply, etc.
You go to work every day at the chili plant, processing chili plants.
Day after day, week after week, for years. One day you and co-workers are engulfed in a cloud of material worse than tear gas.
What would you do? Calling for help is a plausible response in that case. Washing eyes with water wouldn’t help, btw.
Cite for ‘worse than tear gas’: I’ve been tear gassed. Cooking with habaneros was worse.
It wasn’t just employees of the company in question, Deli-Food Chile and Spice LLC, who were affected. From the Las Cruces Sun-News, “Officials estimated 50 people, from five nearby businesses, were affected.”
That Las Cruces Sun-News, article does a better job explaining the scope of the spill. I see now why they called in emergency help. That was a smart call.
Habaneros can be wicked, but worse then tear gas? I cook with them all the time, and I find that hard to believe. Maybe I’m just really used to them, or tear gas isn’t anywhere near as bad as I think it is.
I think it’s a combination of the two. One, a better cite that habaneros are almost as bad as tear gas is the fact that capsaicin has replaced chemical mace in sprays, and habaneros are almost within an order of magnitude of the capsaicin concentrations in pepper sprays.
That said, I also have cooked with multiple habaneros and while there was a tang in the air it wasn’t much compared to onions. Then again I also don’t use gloves while cutting them so maybe they are weak habaneros or I am acclimated to them.
But spilling an industrial amount of habaneros is another story.
Anyone working with peppers knows the all too familiar symptoms. If its too bad, then clear out the work area and wait for the chile dust to settle. I’d guess they called 911 to get an ambulance for the one lady with a prior breathing problem. Then somebody at 911 overreacted with a hazmat call. :rolleyes:
Our tax dollars at work. Battling the dreaded chili dust cloud in New Mexico.