Near Montgomery, Wv 30 east of Charleston, Wv. Fire, House burning, oil in river, evacuation 1-1/2 miles around.
another link.
Bitter cold will not help clean up
Those are some dramatic pictures in the second link. They seems to drive home the point that oil-by-rail detractors have been making. That video of the fire and then an explosion looks just like the Lac Megantic fire. I would say that this event will get a lot of coverage and play a big role in the debate.
“+1” to Euclid’s post above. This one gets an “OMG” from me.
[|(] Thanks a lot, CSX. [}:)] [heavy sarcasm]
Was it Bakken crude ? Seems to have been very ‘light’ and volatile to burn that fiercely.
Only mitigating circumstances are that the fire will ‘burn off’ some of it, lessening the spill/ pollution of the river and drinking water sources; and the very cold temperatures may congeal the stuff at least a little bit to reduce how fast and far it spreads.
Didn’t this same area have the massive leak/ spill of the ‘coal treatment fluid’ of some kind that also contaminated water sources about a year ago ? If so, that’ll leave all the local residents and officilas at various levels of government not too kindly disposed towards another one like that and hence CSX, to say the least.
- Paul North.
This would be a bit upstream from the one you’re (accurately) remembering, Paul. That was one that started on a tributary of the Kanawha River (and reporters and newscasters are having fun with that spelling and pronunciation!) just above Charleston.
This one was at least immediately noticeable, and precautions could be taken in time. The other one, with non-cooperatve owners, not so much. It wasn’t that long ago that I read that the water there still tastes strange and can ignite at the tap, though it’s allegedly safe to drink. I’ll pass this year, thanks!
As a resident of Charleston, I’m aware of concern about the adequacy of governmental regulation of chemical storage tanks. However I’m not aware of continued complaints about water taste; and until now, I had never heard any reports of tap water igniting.
This happened during a really cold spell-broken rail?
Probably another example of issue-focused hyperbole…Thanks, Jay!
Evening news (ABC) seem to blame the tank cars not being strong enough. Don’t believe content was mentioned. File footage was bad.
Man, I think that second link is gonna hurt the rails. People won’t stand for that.[sigh]
One example of how the media plays into the mix. This one made the forum, but the one 2 days ago on the CN in a remote area got less coverage and wasn’t even mentioned on the forum.
The second link needs repeating as much has been added. The video sound may have a blieve as the roar certainly sound like vapor burning. Tree any ideas ?
Oh #%$#^$!
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And here’s another. During the Charleston TV reporter’s impassioned diatribe, he repeatedly refers to the incident as a disaster, even a major disaster. Of course he may be unaware of the coal mine explosions that plagued the WV coal fields for years and that killed hundreds of miners. Or the nitroglycerin truck explosions that caused damage to a number of WV towns. West Virginians have a lot of expeience dealing with industrial incidents.
He did identify the oil as coming from the Bakken oil fields in ND. He also noted that 12 to 15 oil tank cars had derailed and that 3 had exploded.
Yes, the incident is somewhat scary and dramatic, but it’s not a disaster.
While a BLEVE is always a possibility, the explosions could have also simply been a catastrophic failure due to a combination of mechanical damage, fire damage, and the fire. Really kind of a fine line.
If you light a pile of gunpowder, it will pretty much all ignite at once, with spectacular effect, but you won’t get the “bang” you get when you confine it (as in a firecracker).
Without having seen the actual vessels fail, I can’t really guess.
At least the good news is no fatalities reported… So not Lac Magantic all over again… Bad news is, yeah, this is gonna leave a mark on everyone’s perceived opinions of rail traffic safety…
Just saw this on the news. Definitely not good as it gives the oil train detractors more ammunition. Here in Clark County Washington, Tesoro is wanting to build a new facility in the Port of Vancouver and many don’t want the facility and the extra trains. It’s been a hot topic for sure. Even with the extra jobs that come with the new facility, there are many fighting the proposal. Heck there are those that don’t even want the coil trains running as there has been increased traffic from those as well. It seems people around don’t care for trains much. They would rather we truck all the oil across the US increasing traffic and polution.
Thankfully no one was hurt.
No the Enviromentals want us to sit in the cold dark and go back to the caveman days and freeze our butts off. They dont want oil or coal (CO2) They dont want wind(Kills Birds) Dont want solar(Dont want big wind farms) Dont want Hydroeletric (Kills Fish) Dont want nuke(Radiation) Dont want prisonor power riding bikes to generate electicity(Human Explotation Prisons for profit) They would rather have a planet with no people on it and have said it many times.
The fireball has become the symbol for the opposition to oil-by-rail. This wreck has produced some dandy fireballs that will serve the opposition well. The fact that nobody got killed is a plus, but the overriding issue is that the images will promote the idea that the public is playing Russian roulette with oil trains. The images show the massive destructive power, and nobody knows where the next one will strike.
Here is the image problem for the industry:
http://mashable.com/2015/02/17/train-derailment-west-virginia/?utm_cid=hp-hh-pri
I don’t want to sound like a consiracy theorist but has it occured to anyone else that there seems to be a lot of derailments involving oil trains. Is anyone aware of any statistics regarding derailments and a comparision to oil trains vs everything else. Aside from the tragedy in Quebec has anyone looked at all the other oil derailments to see if there is a common thread in safety practices or maintenance etc?
The plain fact of the matter is the oil has to be moved and it’s going to be moved, one way or another. The Republicans know it, and the top Democrats know it, even if they won’t come out and say so for fear of alienating their evironmentalist voting base. This is a national interest issue, and all responsible political leaders know party ideology has to take a back seat when a serious national interest issue comes to the fore.
No-one with any sense of responsibility wants gasolene at $4 or more a gallon. Money going down the gas tank is money people can’t spend on other things. No one likes oil imports, especially from unstable parts of the world. Everyone wants as much energy independence as possible, 100% if it’s do-able.
Rail safety issues should be and have to be addressed, but for now no-one’s going to stop those oil trains.