CN Sets Date To Address Council

Monday, August 27, 2007 07:31 PM

CN will have representatives appear before Prince George City Council on September 17th. Mayor Colin Kinsley says the City has been in contact with CN since the collision, derailment and fire on August 4th, and the letter sent two weeks ago finalized the invitation.

(at left, pumper truck from P.G. Airport tries to douse flames at derail site August 4th, photo, Opinion250 archive)

In addition to that appearance by CN officials, Prince George City Council is also asking that representatives frm the Transportation Safety Board appear on the same evening to bring Council up to date on their investigation.

Councilor Brian Skakun’s motion calling for a special review of the August 4th incident has also been approved. He called for "Administration to be directed to prepare a critical incident report seeking feedback from the RCMP, MOE, Prince George Fire department, Prince George Airport, CN Rail and any other agencies that had a role in the response to this derailment and fire."

Skakun says it would be great to celebrate all the things that went right, and to correct all the things that could be done better.

Skakun says the City of Prince George was very lucky the derailment and fire did not cause further damage and loss of life. " Our first responders did a great job in containing the fire and keeping people away from the immediate area. The fact that this derailment and fire happened on the other side of the Fraser River and not closer to the downtown or residential areas located near the CN tracks was a matter of luck and that’s all. "

Skakun says the idea of having a critical incident follow up report is to "Analyze how we as a community responded to this incident and to implement if any, recommendations that arise out of the review"

Meantime, the Transportation Safety Board continues its investigation of the events which lead up to the collision, derailment and fire, and Enivronmental clean up began today as per the plan submitted to the Ministry of the Environment last Wednesday.

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Posted on Monday, August 27, 2007 07:31 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Foo738 on August 28 2007 11:44 AM

I wish City Council was more "forward looking" in their dealings with CN. To go over "what happened in the past" is not going to help prevent a major incident in the residential areas West of the Old Nechako Bridge (Cameron).