The Perfect Storm

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz    Searchers dig through the rubble for victims of the inferno in Lac-Megantic, Que., Monday, July 8, 2013, after a train derailed igniting tanker cars carrying crude oil early Saturday. Five people are confirmed dead and forty more are listed as missing. 

 

 Lac-Megantic has achieved a measure of fame throughout the international community as world news networks remain focused on the disaster visited on the pretty little town of 6,000 souls reeling from a disaster that The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway authorities appear to be trying to blame responding local firefighters of causing.

Their 73-car fuel tankers, their engineer, their responsibility to ensure that all is well, but when their engine catches fire and first-responders put out the blaze, leaving the scene in the presumably capable hands of two of the Railway's engineers, and an hour later the train slips down into the town of Lac-Megantic, it is the firefighters that are the cause.

The death toll of the unprecedented event is rising, and will continue to rise. At last news count, seventeen bodies have been found, another twenty, thirty to go. The town centre has been demolished. "It's a catastrophe" said Quebec Health minister Rejean Hebert, referring to the fact that a few people only had been treated for smoke inhalation and minor injuries, translating to what appears to be "a black and white situation".

Either people managed to escape or they did not. And many did not.

Shops, cafes and bistros, the library and the Anglican Church, the old firehall, a funeral home, a notary's office and hairdressing salon, all destroyed, a vast, bleak area of black ash is all that remains of what was once a bustling, colourful town centre. "I stayed there a few seconds because I knew people inside and I could do nothing because it was too hot. We could not return inside to save them. It was happening very fast, maybe 15, 20 seconds", said Bernard Thiberge.

"We heard a big noise and we see that the train come very fast." The ground was shaking; the train was moving at a rate far exceeding its usual pace as it enters town on its journey onward. "When it fell over, there were these big explosions. Everyone on the terrace was running to escape. There was a big wall of fire on each side of the street", he said. He felt there might have been 60 to 70 people inside the popular night spot where he usually works.

No one thought too much about the train tracks running through town. Nor that they carried toxic materials. All that has changed; it is the only thing on anyone's confused minds. How could such a thing happen? The familiar suddenly transformed into a catastrophic, wretched wreck. "We ran when we saw it was the oil cars. Anyone who was in that area who was inside the building had very little chance to get out", said Gilles Fluet, who had just left the Musi-Cafe.

He waved goodnight to his friends. The way you do to say in effect, 'see you later, fellas'. He estimates there were maybe 40 people there as he left. He won't be seeing them again, not in this lifetime. "There was no way they could get out", he says with utter resignation. The fire's cause, and the train's engineer having left that train with its combustible cargo on the track with no one standing by will be questioned.

The railway issued a statement saying the locomotive of the oil train appeared to have been shut down after the engineer on duty from Farnham to Nantes left the train and this "may have resulted in the release of air brakes on the locomotive that was holding the train in place". How? A lot of questions hover in everyone's mind, from town residents mourning their dead, to the stunned provincial authorities, to the Prime Minister who, on viewing the wreckage described a "war scene".

"Railways have become a complementary option for moving crude to refineries located near tide water for access by ocean tankers (that) are not currently served by pipeline", said the railway association's president, Michael Bourque by way of explanation. "Every mode (of transportation) has its nightmare scenarios. This one is for the railways. This (accident) was absolutely the perfect storm", noted rail-transport policy expert Avrom Shtern.