The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s (CSB) YouTube channel, @USCSB, which features the agency’s safety videos, now has 365,000 subscribers. The CSB recently received a Silver Play Button award from YouTube for having more than 100,000 subscribers, the board announced February 14.

The CSB is an independent federal government board that investigates industrial chemical incidents and makes safety recommendations to companies, industry organizations, labor unions, and regulatory agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The CSB doesn’t issue citations for regulatory violations or impose any fines. Board members are appointed by the president and are subject to Senate confirmation.

The CSB uses its YouTube channel to inform the public and the chemical industry of ways to help prevent catastrophic chemical accidents, and it’s been a way for the agency to share findings and safety lessons from its investigations.

“The CSB’s safety video program has been an extraordinarily successful way for the agency to provide critical information to a very wide audience of safety managers and workers at chemical facilities across the country, as well as stakeholders, government officials, and the public at large,” Shauna Lawhorne, who oversees the CSB’s safety video program, said in a board statement. “The CSB’s safety video channel has more subscribers than the YouTube channels for even some of the very large, more well-known government agencies.”

The CSB launched its YouTube channel in 2007 and has posted nearly 100 safety videos, receiving over 65 million combined views.

The board’s videos have included:

• “Blowout in Oklahoma” (3.7 million views) about the January 2018 blowout and fire at the Pryor Trust gas well in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, that killed five workers;
• “The Danger of Popcorn Polymer” (3.3 million views) about the November 2019 explosions and fires at the TPC Group Chemical Plant in Port Neches, Texas, which seriously injured three workers and caused $450 million in on-site property damage and $150 million in off-site property damage to nearby homes and businesses; and
• “Fatal Exposure: Tragedy at DuPont” (3.2 million views) about three incidents that occurred over a 33-hour period at the DuPont plant in Belle, West Virginia, in January 2010, one of which fatally injured an employee.

One of the board’s most watched videos, “Wake Up Call: Refinery Disaster in Philadelphia,” received over 1 million views in the first 9 days after it was posted. The video about the June 2019 fire, explosions, and toxic hydrofluoric acid release at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, received a Silver Telly Award, as did the video “Simultaneous Tragedy: Fire at Evergreen Packaging.”

The board’s video on the fatal fire at the Evergreen Packaging paper mill in Canton, North Carolina, examined the hazards of simultaneous operations (SIMOPS). SIMOPS involve tasks performed by multiple teams in the same location at the same time. Work performed during SIMOPS can create hazards that pose risks to the workers performing their assigned tasks and those working on unrelated tasks.