OPINION: Unfavourable odds

Sometimes after a human disaster the troubling effects of the tragedy can unexpectedly surface some time later and many miles away. 

It happened to me the other day when I was sitting at a railway crossing, as a long freight train rolled and rumbled through town.
The tanker cars were moving slowly and I was first in a long line of vehicles impatiently waiting for the unknown cargo to pass.
Heavy, black tankers lumbered by just a few metres from my windshield.  At slow speeds you can see how much they wobble and shake.

I looked at the slow moving train and noticed that each car had a capacity of almost 100,000 kilograms.

I had no idea what was in the containers and the warnings and danger signs did nothing to reassure me.

Suddenly it dawned on me.  If that train derailed and exploded I would have an excellent view of the accident. 

In fact, I would have an even better view than those poor souls who were tragically killed by an exploding train in Lac Mégantic on July 5. 

To keep from freaking out, I decided to do a simple assessment of the current situation.

I’m sure Thunder Bay city council regularly conducts similar risk assessments, unless they have reason to believe this type of disaster could never happen here.

That is likely what many former residents of that small Quebec town thought just before the blast – a million to one shot.

As I sat at the crossing in my vehicle and felt the ground shaking from the tremendous weight of those rolling cylinders, I did not like those odds.

With thousands of tankers carrying millions of litres of nasty, explosive stuff through hundreds of Canadian cities every day, a million isn’t such a large number.

Still, I had no real reason to be alarmed in spite of finding myself dangerously close to potentially dangerous circumstances…even though the train was now gaining speed.

I tried to relax.  Hazardous materials are the responsibility of well-trained individuals who know the importance of safe work procedures.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, the Lac Mégantic train was owned by Rail World Inc., a company that buys government owned railroads, runs them into the ground and then resells at a profit.

Their locomotives regularly catch fire. A blaze was detected and extinguished a couple of hours before the big bang.

On this route, the cheapest single-walled tanker cars were used to transport Bakken oil, a type of flammable, light crude.

The company saved more money by reducing the crew.  For overnight stops the train was unattended and unlocked with the motor running, to engage the air brakes.

On that fateful night the runaway train rolled downhill until it derailed, exploded and destroyed much of the town along with many of its families. 

Some victims will never be found or identified.

What are the odds of something like that happening around here?  When you think about it, there aren’t many neighbourhoods in this city safely located outside the danger zone.

Drivers in Thunder Bay often sit, trapped and unprotected at the many railway crossings in town. 

Although they are a link to our colourful past they have become an annoying inconvenience and a symptom of ineffective city planning.
Are they also an unknown menace – some say a ticking time bomb – as they anonymously wind their way through residential areas of our city?

I trust that the city’s emergency preparedness plan is not collecting dust somewhere.

A million to one is not good enough odds for the families of Thunder Bay.