Maui-Based Employee Tapped For Recovery Effort

格雷格•詹金斯 joined 澳博体育app下载 in June of 2022 as a Dangerous Goods Specialist after a 33-year career as a firefighter on Maui. 大约一年后, after wildfires destroyed the historic town of Lahaina as well as homes in other parts of Maui on August 8, 他的电话响个不停.

One of the calls was from the Maui County Emergency Operations Center. Relief supplies were beginning to flow into Maui 和 donations from across the Maui community began to inundate the Napili Fire Station. Local officials needed to quickly assess community needs 和 set up relief supply distribution centers around Lahaina. Jenkins 和 fellow Maui Fire retirees were asked to lead one of the County’s community relief supply efforts located at Napili Plaza, 和 the next three weeks turned into a blur of sleepless nights 和 exhausting days organizing 和 st和ing up community distribution centers across West Maui.

“The only site that was workable at the time was the dense evacuee area of Napili, so we coordinated with the property manager 和 Fire Captain on duty at the Napili Station 和 set up in front of Napili Market,詹金斯说。. “在那之后, we were serving several hundred-plus people per day for several weeks with ice out of 澳博体育app下载 refrigerated containers, 餐, 干货, 人类和宠物医疗, 和更多的.”

Having specialized in Hazardous Materials (otherwise known as “HazMat”) during his firefighting career, Jenkins had retired as Captain of Maui Fire’s HazMat Response Unit. As the response agencies began to plan the first phase of recovery – restoring safety in the community by clearing household hazardous waste – a new assignment came to work on rendering lithium-ion batteries safe for transportation to the mainl和 for proper recycling disposal.

Now he was being asked to participate in planning meetings 和 help develop strategies to accomplish a host of difficult tasks as quickly 和 safely as possible. He requested leave from 澳博体育app下载 和 has since devoted himself full-time to helping manage parts of the incident response 和 recovery effort, while still helping cover some of the key responsibilities of his position with our Safety, 质量, 环境, 保安部.

Phase 1 of the site recovery effort began in late August under the direction of the U.S. 环境 Protection Agency (EPA) with the removal of household hazardous waste materials, 例如商业废物, lithium-ion batteries in residential 和 commercial properties, 和 electric vehicles along with gas cylinders, 油漆, 溶剂, 农药, fertilizers 和 battery packs used in solar power. These materials can be shipped on commercial carriers like 澳博体育app下载 if they qualify for carriage under strict Dangerous Goods regulations, 和, 在澳博体育app下载的案例中, the company’s own strict requirements 和 acceptance procedures.

Jenkins’ focus on lithium-ion batteries has put him near the leading edge of science addressing one of the more pressing concerns in the maritime industry. Along with being ubiquitous in consumer goods from cell phones to hearing aids, lithium-ion batteries are the heart of a global shift toward electric vehicles along with residential 和 commercial energy storage. 近年来, the world has learned that if a lithium-ion battery catches fire, conventional firefighting techniques are almost ineffective.

(去年, 澳博体育app下载 acquired newly developed equipment designed to control a lithium-ion battery fire in a container – see the story in our December 2022 issue – 和 implemented a new, comprehensive screening process to ensure the safe carriage of electric vehicles 和 other products with lithium-ion batteries. The company is also in the process of acquiring state-of-the-art early detection fire warning systems for our CON-RO vessels.)

Jenkins 和 our Dangerous Goods team, along with 环境 Affairs Manager Keahi Birch, have been working closely with EPA leaders assigned to the Maui response effort 和 other stakeholders to ensure that anything shipped from Maui is safe to transport.