TOLEDO, Ohio — Some north Toledo businesses aren't happy with how last week's fire at OneH2, Inc. was handled when it came to evacuations.
One business said it had a potentially dangerous situation since there wasn't more warning given.
Smokey Point Distributing is a Toledo hub for the national transportation company and office manager Kathy Morgan said more on the evacuation should have been done.
"They assume because you're in an industrial area that there's nobody here," Morgan said. "But this is a trucking company, there's drivers here all the time."
The trucking company can see OneH2 just across the street. Morgan said first responders to Thursday night's fire, which surrounded hydrogen tanks and forced a half-mile radius to be evacuated, forgot a couple of people. She said two drivers were sleeping in their trucks the entire night and didn't get the memo to get out.
"We woke them up in the morning when I couldn't get down the road to go to work. He didn't know," Morgan said. "You're trying to throw stuff together to get out of here because what if that thing blows?"
She said trucking companies typically always have someone on the lot, day or night. Since both fire and police were on the scene the night of the fire, WTOL 11 checked with the Toledo Police Department to learn how evacuations are handled.
"It's really a joint effort to make sure the community is safe and we've assisted them in the past with evacuating people," Lt. Paul Davis said.
A Toledo Fire Department spokesperson said in this case it would not have been realistic to knock on every single area business' door. While Morgan said she understands the difficulty, she just wished first responders had done something more.
"We get emergency alerts for everything," Morgan said. "If you're evacuating because of hydrogen, that's a big threat. Then there should have been something more done."
She added that going forward, Smokey Point Distributing will plan for the worst and hope for the best.
"We haven't thought about it yet. I'm going to have to take my laptop home with me every night because you just never know," Morgan said.
TFRD agreed some sort of mass alert could be sent out for future safety protocols like this situation to ensure everyone is given proper notice about mass evacuations.