Rangeley fire chief tells Senate subcommittee people ‘vaporized’ in Quebec rail disaster

bangordailynews.com ^ | April 09, 2014, at 6:25 p.m. | Nick Sambides Jr., BDN Staff

[BenLurkin]

The explosion destroyed six city blocks. Several of the 30 burning buildings were incinerated. Many ruptured tanker cars were bunched together like folds in an accordion. Still others, intact, could detonate at any second, and Pellerin could tell that much of the 1.5 million gallons of spilled oil had ignited and poured through the small Quebec town like lava.

Canadian firefighters told Pellerin that “they actually saw people step out of their homes and be vaporized by the [burning] oil,” Pellerin told the U.S. Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee in Washington on Wednesday

[Jonty30]

It may have been. Once the fire started, the town went up in flames.

[Moonman62]

Call it the Buffet tax. He’s the one profiting most from rail-based oil transport, and seems to have the ear of this administration.

Before that he made money hauling coal. He does a great job of pretending to be a liberal.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That would have been hellish... try to escape and get burned at once, or wait and get burned in the house.

[Jonty30]

I’m probably more bothered by the fact that the company wanted to save the cost of about $80,000 by not having a second engineer to operate the train in the event that one was left unable to operate competently because of exhaustion.

Billions of dollars in damage done, over 40 lives extinguished, and no way to collect recompense it because the private company was allowed to go bankrupt.

[jonrick46]

It is these types of stories that are being used to demonize fracking technology. The anti petroleum folks are hellbent in stopping the distribution of oil found in our oil reserves through fracking.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well, anything that yielded oil would be susceptible to such criticism.

A pipeline would be a lot safer.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And... crude oil has a lot of volatile flammable fractions in it. It’s not like motor oil; it will burn at room temperature.

[jonrick46]

The problem is the EPA is regulating out the pipeline option.

[smokingfrog]

The RR was definitely negligent and irresponsible, there's no question about that. My problem is with the fire chief telling tall tales to get a govt. grant. If first responders need more equipment and resources to respond to disasters, they should have it. Just don't tell tall tales about what really happened to suit your agenda, is all I'm saying.

[okie01]

If first responders need more equipment and resources to respond to disasters, they should have it.

Given this was a Senate sub-committee, I'd wager the objective of the exercise is not to find a way to spend more money on grants to local fire departments.

Instead, the purpose of these hearings is to ramp up the envirowacko movement to have rail shipment of crude oil banned.

[Liberty Valance]

Roger Miller - King Of the Road

[Jonty30]

How do you know he’s telling tall tales? Were you there?

It’s a fact that a town basically disappeared off the map because of this derailment. A town, where every building is on fire is going to be a lot hotter than normal.

Here are some pictures of the disaster that happened.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/07/freight-train-derails-and-explodes-in-lac-megantic-quebec/100548/

One difference between Canadian and American politics is that there is far less to gain from exaggerations, because the Canadian system is a lot more transparent than the American system. That’s one of the benefits of a Parliamentary style of government.

[tdscpa]

Gordon Lightfoot is very late in releasing his next hit record: “The Wreck of the M, M, & A”.

[Kirkwood]

Either way you describe it, vaporized or incinerated, the people in that town died. I’m not sure how you can ignore that.

[smokingfrog]

Progressive Railroading

[smokingfrog]

I’m not ignoring anything.

[smokingfrog]

Pellerin made a name for himself in Lincoln County as he raked in grant funds for various upgrades to county systems.

[stormer]

Jesus. Really?

[Kirkwood]

You said the deaths were a tall tale.

[dfwgator]

I would love to see us adopt “Question Time” here, would have come in handy during the ObamaCare debacle.