CN Derailment Smoke Drifting Over Prince George

Saturday, August 04, 2007 07:13 PM

Although the CN derailment is on the east side of the Fraser River, the smoke from the burning tanker cars is visible 6km away, and the smoke is now drifting over the City of Prince George ( photo opinion250 staff)

The wind has changed, and officials are now advising anyone living in the bowl area of Prince George who has respiratory concerns to ensure they close the windows on their residence.

The impact of a train collision and derailment to air quality in Prince George was not viewed as a concern because the thick plume of smoke was lifting straight up, and earlier in the day had posed no threat to the heart of the city. “What we are concerned about is particulates” says Sharlene Lively, the Public Health Protection Manager with Northern Health. “Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. David Bowering contacted experts on toxins, and given the information on the materials that were burning (lumber and gasoline) we were advised there was no threat to public health” said Lively.

But that was information based on the column of smoke rising straight up and dissipating to the east. The youth containment centre, and the Prince George Corrections Centre were both put on standby to close their air intakes should the fumes be found to contain toxic materials. Neither site had had to close those intakes.

The winds have now changed.

The black plume of smoke is now expected to drift over the bowl area of Prince George overnight as the tanker filled with 50 thousand gallons of gasoline continues to burn.

An evacuation request remains in effect for the area across the river from the derailment, however, emergency personnel say if people don’t want to leave their homes, there is nothing emergency personnel can do about it.

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Posted on Saturday, August 04, 2007 07:13 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: RUEZ on August 4 2007 7:45 PM

That's five stories now about this. You'd think it was the news of the century.

Posted by: editor on August 4 2007 8:08 PM

Five stories indeed, is it national news, check CBC or any other major media in Canada. We at 250 pride ourselves in knowing what a story is... do you ?

Posted by: RUEZ on August 4 2007 8:11 PM

I guess there was nothing else going on in the world eh "editor"?

Posted by: Becca on August 4 2007 8:21 PM

As soon as I heard about this train accident, I went onto 250 as I knew it was have the information I wanted asap. Skip the citizen, ckpg, etc. This is a local (northern) news site, you want global check out CBC or CNN.

Posted by: lunarguy on August 4 2007 8:30 PM

I agree with Becca, I came here first. This is a big news event no matter how you slice it. Could have been many people injured today, we are so lucky for how it played out.

Posted by: charles on August 4 2007 8:49 PM

Keep up the good work on your website Ben and Elaine.

Posted by: seamutt on August 4 2007 9:13 PM

Good timely reporting 250. Usually when something in town happens 250 is on it. Radio stations in town are reporting the news on this event, usually there is no coverage on weekends. The column of smoke must have been their first clue.

Posted by: trueblue2 on August 4 2007 9:49 PM

Uh, I take it Ruez doesn' think this story merits coverage? We should all be thinking carefully about what is going on over there. If it was diesel it will be a disaster for the river and near miss for us. Thank God it wasn;t a tanker full of pulp mill chemicals...that cloud would really take your breath away.

CN needs to be sued. Period. By the people.

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on August 4 2007 10:04 PM

I get a kick out of watching people and the "e" people racing around. I saw fire trucks going in opposite directions! Hilarious!
The radio guy was hyping it up with talk of unknown dire toxic chemicals and imminent explosions that would flatten the town! Hilarious!
The airshow was OK. Funny how many people around town haven't seen the tankers and dog team work before, so that was a great show for those that have never seen the boys drive before. It was just an airshow though because there was so much rain that the boys had a hard time seeing the drop point.
Great time for the "e" people to get all important over a petrol and wood fire. Funny thing is it wasn't much different than the big black column of smoke that the airport puts up as a practice fire. Well maybe the "e" people just practice talking into a tin can in preparation for this day. Hilarious!
I took pictures of people, it was fun.

Posted by: trueblue2 on August 4 2007 10:25 PM

is there a voice of reason here, anywhere?

Posted by: REALIST on August 4 2007 11:01 PM

Thanks for the coverage Ben and Elaine! It's nice to know that there is an alternative to the corporate media, who cater to the corporate concerns. Through you we the people get the opportunity to know the real stories. I'll bet that there are plenty of reporters out there who want to do real reporting but, are blocked by media giants like Canwest and their corporate owners. You are doing the work that journalism was intended to do and for that thanks. As for the negative comments posted here, I think the regular readers are very aware of the mentality of some of the posters and will take them for what they are. At the end of this day I thank God that C.N. did not obliterate our city. As the C.N. employee said at the fire "If the people of Prince George really knew what was going down the tracks on C.N.Rail the would be extremely frightened that it is in the hands of such incompetents". We dodged a bullet here fellow citizens. Next time we might not be so lucky.

Posted by: camoose on August 5 2007 12:21 AM

Great coverage of this story. Keep up the good work. I would imagine the Citizen will have already read your posts and are readying their page 54 coverage of the derailment for sometime toward the end of next week. The first place i look for non sugar-coated news is 250. A breath of fresh air in what is loosely called media news reporting. Thanks for the timely coverage of this event.

Posted by: dgdiggler on August 5 2007 12:40 AM

Do we really want CN in downtown prince george? They are an accident waiting to happen.

Posted by: RUEZ on August 5 2007 1:00 AM

Well to be fair, CN has been downtown for a long time with no major disasters that I know of. There real problem is when they took over BC Rail.

Posted by: owl on August 5 2007 1:37 AM

The rail should not be that close to the river where the ground is basically sand and gravel that is carried away at high water times similar to the Miworth situation. It is not as bad there since it is not in a curve, however, the higher the water, the more gets washed away and the more the tracks subside.

The risk of an accident and the risk of the consequences of an accident are higher there than in other locations for many reasons. Time to relocate the tracks or sink some money into improving the situation. Driving steel sheet piling along the river bank would go a long way to reduce risks associated with track stability.

Posted by: Gofaster on August 5 2007 6:01 AM

I wonder if the government will now step in...pretty hard for CN to say no harm no foul with this one!.
Two derailments here in PG in two weeks....
Next one could be the killer....
And yes a large very scary fire ensued...
fortunately they managed to get most of the rail cars moved out of the way.
Foresty did a great job with the water bomber...

Posted by: Andyfreeze on August 5 2007 6:45 AM

Exellent coverage by Opinion 250!
There is no question that CN's saftey record is a disgrace but,in all fairness,as long as there are railroads there will be accidents, just as there will be with with any other commercial transportation operation etc.
Unfortunately CN seems to be suffering from a bit of overkill.Probably a bit of tension in the boardroom this morning!
As Owl,mentioned,stability along a riverbank will always be an issue but there is not much chance of them moving the tracks anytime soon.
Fortunately for PG,the bullet was dodged and nobody died.
It is interesting to see the lack of comment by the Campbell government.
I get the feeling that they would very much like to see the CN/B.C.Rail issue go away but as long as CN keeps screwing up,it will remain in the spotlite.
And rightly so.
The spin on this beauty will no doubt be very interesting as the finger pointing begins.
They are masters at deflecting heat.
B.C.Rail had accidents too,lots of them.
The question is how strongly will the B.C.government and the federal government push CN to clean up its act?
My guess it not very hard.
Next to the government itself,they are probably the most powerful corporation in the country and that is unlikely to change in the future.
Like companies such as Alcan for instance,too much power was granted in the begining and that power base has continued to expand over the years.
Next time we may not be quite so lucky!

Posted by: Andyfreeze on August 5 2007 7:13 AM

We should also remember that this was not actually a track issue.Two trains don't work well on the same track if they are traveling in opposite directions!
Those tracks have been there for many, many years, and I don't recall any serious issues up until now?

Posted by: Chester on August 5 2007 5:12 PM

It is discouraging to see comments playing down the seriousness of this incident. One of the tank cars was full of gasoline. If you have ever seen a Bleve', you will respond with much more seriousness than the cavalier attitude exibited above.

As there are only two sources of access to this incident, it would make sense that responding crews would attempt to access the site or protect "lookee lews" from wandering into a potentially lethal situation.

Let's get real, what would the average citizen expect emergency crews with a situation we just experienced? Protect lives, protect exposures, (forest fire potential) and contain the incident. They all did the right thing and let it burn itself out while protecting everyone else. Well done. Chester

Posted by: Harbinger on August 5 2007 6:51 PM

We oughta make CNN on both channels if ever a bridge here were to collapse. Not the Cameron Street bridge, Heaven forbid!

Posted by: charles on August 5 2007 8:41 PM

Chester, after reading your post where you mentioned bleve, I went to youtube and put "bleve" in the search box. The results showed several pretty spectacular bleve explosions.

Maybe the City of Prince George should be looking at some kind of an evacuation plan for that part of town which is so close to the railway tracks, after the events of this past weekend. Some of the cars CN carries are very toxic and very explosive.

Posted by: thereasonableman on August 5 2007 9:40 PM

When I saw the plume of smoke in town, I thought to myself, "Whatever is going on, I'll go home and read 250....they'll have the whole story".

And they did.

Posted by: DPJ on August 6 2007 12:47 AM

Went down as a local visitor to see what was happenning and the traffic on Queensway was like Vancouver traffic. Feel for the residents in the royal regents area and Fort George park area to cope with all those local visitors (like me).