Nitric acid spill follow-up: City Council addresses emergency response system

After the nitric acid spill on I-10 on February 14, the Tucson City Council took a closer look at the city’s emergency response system. The mayor and council took another look today during a meeting about how they can improve in the future. The council praised the different agencies like the fire department that helped control the spill. One of the things they discussed was hiring an emergency manager that could step up and give the public information during an incident. “All of the stakeholders that were involved in the incident agree that holding a joint information center or JIC, which DPS was reluctant to do,” Timothy Thomure, assistant city manager, said. “It would have alleviated and been the solution to most — if not all — of the communication issues, so that is an area where this should have occurred it did not occur and that’s a lesson learned for all of us.”