One of the lessons emergency officials learned from dealing with last week's mysterious blue haze is the need for better communications between local agencies and between local agencies and the public.

The subject of the mysterious haze that descended on the Kanawha Valley on Friday came up - briefly - during a regular meeting of the Kanawha-Putnam Emergency Planning Committee on Wednesday.

More than 40 representatives of local emergency service providers, health professionals and chemical industry leaders attended the meeting at the Little Creek Country Club in South Charleston.

Dale Petry, director of emergency services for Kanawha County, said emergency services personnel were as stymied as everybody else when reports started coming in around 1 p.m. of a blue haze that smelled like chlorine.

"When I smelled chlorine, I expected it to be a chlorine leak," Petry said.

But no local chemical company reported a chemical leak, and it was about 5 p.m. before officials for the state Department of Environmental Protection attributed the cloud to pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Petry said emergency services officials now believe the cloud was caused by the Kanawha Valley's normal amount of pollution being trapped by an air inversion. Local weather officials said a layer of warm air up to 2,000 feet high descended on the Valley on Friday, trapping anything released from local smokestacks underneath.

One of the lessons emergency officials learned from dealing with last week's mysterious blue haze is the need for better communications between local agencies and between local agencies and the public.

The subject of the mysterious haze that descended on the Kanawha Valley on Friday came up - briefly - during a regular meeting of the Kanawha-Putnam Emergency Planning Committee on Wednesday.

More than 40 representatives of local emergency service providers, health professionals and chemical industry leaders attended the meeting at the Little Creek Country Club in South Charleston.

Dale Petry, director of emergency services for Kanawha County, said emergency services personnel were as stymied as everybody else when reports started coming in around 1 p.m. of a blue haze that smelled like chlorine.

"When I smelled chlorine, I expected it to be a chlorine leak," Petry said.

But no local chemical company reported a chemical leak, and it was about 5 p.m. before officials for the state Department of Environmental Protection attributed the cloud to pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Petry said emergency services officials now believe the cloud was caused by the Kanawha Valley's normal amount of pollution being trapped by an air inversion. Local weather officials said a layer of warm air up to 2,000 feet high descended on the Valley on Friday, trapping anything released from local smokestacks underneath.

Petry said officials at local chemical plants are required to report any chemical release. When chemical companies didn't report anything that afternoon, officials started calling the chemical plants. "We felt helpless," Petry said. "We got calls asking, 'Am I going to die before you find out what this is?'"

Petry said industry leaders were cooperative in trying to track down the source of the cloud.

"We tried several different resources of our own to try to find out what the haze was," he said.

But the length of time it took to figure out what was causing the cloud and the ensuing confusion proves a need for better communication, suggested Emergency Planning Committee chairwoman Elizabeth Scharman.

Unsure of what the cloud was, emergency officials suggested residents who were concerned about their safety remain indoors. Some local television and radio stations interpreted the suggestion as an order to shelter in place.

"That means people don't understand what shelter in place means," Scharman said.

Scharman said it was important for local leaders to talk with each other and better educate the public.

To contact staff writer Rusty Marks, use e-mail or call 348-1215.