Chemical Safety After Dark: Andrea's Late-Night Solo

In this episode of the Talking Pools Podcast, Andrea hosts a late-night solo session, humorously dubbed the "Andrea Solo-Solo." Recording from her car at 10 PM after her guest canceled, Andrea discusses the importance of chemical safety in pool maintenance, particularly in light of a recent hazardous chemical leak at the Great Wolf Lodge in Webster, Texas.

Andrea reports on the incident where 16 people were hospitalized after a third-party contractor improperly mixed sodium hypochlorite and sulfuric acid, causing a dangerous reaction. She emphasizes the need for proper labeling of chemical tanks and urges pool professionals to avoid carelessness that could lead to similar accidents.

Throughout the episode, Andrea touches on the broader topic of pool safety, particularly the terminology used for chemicals. She argues against using vague or incorrect names like "chlorine shock," which can lead to dangerous misunderstandings and improper chemical mixing.

The episode, though brief, is packed with practical advice and a call for heightened awareness and safety in the pool industry. Andrea ends by encouraging listeners to stay safe, be mindful, and reach out if they want to discuss or debate the topics further on the show.

Transcript

 Andrea (00:01.086) Morning No, it's not morning. It is ten o 'clock at night What are you doing listening to the show? I'm just kidding. I don't know when you're listening anyway welcome to this show this is the talking pools podcast and This is Andrea. I'm solo tonight. This is the This is Andrea's Solo -Solo. That's what I'm going to call it. Andrea's Solo -Solo. Yeah, for now. So, if you're watching this, it's very dark. You can't really see me, so I don't know how that's going to work out. But if you're not watching it and you're just listening, thank you for joining me. As I mentioned, it is 10 o 'clock at night. I'm sitting in my car to record this. I was supposed to have a guest and she bailed on me. So anyway, I wanted to talk to you guys about, well, I wanted to update everybody on the Great Wolf Lodge chemical leak. Excuse me. There was an update that I got today at 2 .30 PM. So I wanted to report on that because there's some stuff that's been going on that I've been seeing lately that I think that, you know, we need to address. My last episode I talked about how we need to talk more about safety in the pools, going beyond swimming lessons. And so another thing that has been driving me nuts is chemicals and what we call them and I know if you've seen my Facebook post lately That one went a little off the chain where I was talking about how we shouldn't be calling Chlorine shock I don't want to get too much into that right now because I want to have like I want to do like a deep dive on that and actually have other people's opinions and stuff, but part of Andrea (02:28.812) Part of why I'm so upset about it, and I'm just using the term upset loosely, it's whatever, but I feel like people are... putting themselves at risk and causing danger, causing damage, possibly putting others and themselves in danger by mixing chemicals, by mixing incompatible chemicals because they don't have the correct names for them. It's a whole thing that I want to get into, but... I figured I would kind of start with this update on this chemical leak. So here's the article from MSN .com hazardous chemical leak reported at Great Wolf Lodge's opening day in Webster. So 16 people were transported to nearby hospitals on Wednesday morning after improperly mixed pool chemicals caused a hazardous chemical reaction at the opening of Great Wolf Lodge in Webster, Texas. Webster officials said in a statement on Wednesday that a third party contractor at the newly opened resort improperly mixed the pool chemicals. The incident happened in a pool house separate from the hotel Amar Park, officials said. The Webster Fire Chief Dean Spencer said a contractor had mixed to unlike chemicals, sodium hypochlorite and sulfuric acid resulting in the hazardous reaction. So we all know what happens when you mix chlorine and acid. I'm going to guess here. I'm gonna speculate and say that the tanks weren't labeled. That is my guess. That doesn't say anything. It doesn't say this in the article. Andrea (04:26.92) It just says those two chemicals were mixed. It goes on to say that the Webster Fire Department isolated the tanks, monitored the area, and confirmed no chemicals were detected in the hotel or water park. The situation was quickly contained and will not affect the lodge's operations today, the statement from the city said. you know, and they go on to say that the health and safety of their guests is their top priority. It says it was a third -party contractor who improperly mixed the chemicals. Just, you know, I've been guilty of it. I have, I think I talked about this with Rudy, can't remember on our Friday show, but, so I've been careless before where I've spilled chemicals. I got careless with an acid jug and I had an empty one and I just kind of tossed in the back of my truck. And it wasn't, closed all the way and some acid had dripped out into one of my chlorine jugs. I was able to neutralize everything, like nothing bad happened. But my point is, is that we start to get careless and we don't stop and think like, hey, this is unsafe. This thing right here that I just looked at that I know is unsafe, if I don't fix it, it's going to cause a problem. for somebody else or for myself if I forget that it's a problem. So when you see things that are issues like an unlabeled tank is what I'm getting at. Or if it's the wrong label or the label's faded or you can get those little plastic badges that you can stick onto the tanks, you can take a Sharpie and just write on there with the Sharpies, chlorine tank, acid tank, pH, Andrea (06:31.193) acid only, chlorine, you know, only chlorine. Don't be careless like I was with with jugs and don't be careless with not having this proper safety protocols. enacted like don't you know make sure that if you see something, you just go ahead and address it, especially at commercial pools, you know, where you have these large systems and you have lots and lots of people every day. So we just need to make sure that we're being observant and mindful and careful and don't be careless. And I think, which I would like to get into more detail later, like I mentioned, we need to be more careful as professionals in the industry. terminology that we use, you know, and I don't mean like colloquialism. I don't mean like, you know, in different regions. Some people call soda pop, okay, soda pop. Some people just call it coke. Some people call it whatever. I don't think it should be like that with dangerous pool stuff, you know, calling a vacuum a sweep drives me insane, but that's not going to hurt anybody. Andrea (08:06.36) It's just me being picky with words. But calling chlorine shock when there are different types of chlorine that can't be mixed, it shouldn't be that way. We should just call it by its name. And there's other reasons which I can get into later. But yeah, so this episode was just going to be real short because of how late it is. I apologize for that. Andrea (08:41.67) but I'm doing what I can for you. And I want you to stay safe and I want you to keep your customers and our, you know, the people who keep us in the industry. The reason we have an industry, the swimmers, the bathers, keep them safe. So stop calling chlorine shock and make sure your tanks are labeled. Be safe. Don't get careless. Be careful. And that's all I got for tonight. So I kept it short and sweet. Listen to us on the Talking Pools Network. We have a bunch of different shows. If you want to talk to me on this show about something, if you want to argue with me, that would be fun. You can email TalkingPools at gmail .com. You can find me on social media. I'm sure you already know where. Yeah, that's pretty much it. So thanks for listening. Please stay tuned for more exciting episodes of the Andrea Solo -Solo, but I'll have guests. So anyway, Rudy, I hope you're doing well. Bye.