Recent Fiery Derailment Has Officials Focusing On Train Safety
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – A fiery derailment last month in West Virginia is the kind that keeps emergency managers up at night.
It's especially disconcerting when 60 to 70 taker cars carrying the same volatile Bakken crude pass through the region every day, including right through the heart of downtown Pittsburgh.
"My concerns as a public safety director are a lot of those rail lines carry this Bakken crude oil and other chemicals pass critical infrastructure, places like schools, hospitals, nursing homes, all of which would have to be evacuated in an emergency," said one official.
That's why Sen. Bob Casey was in town Friday, with ways of preventing such crashes and responding to them when they do.
"And to make sure that those who are doing the difficult and dangerous job work of responding, that they have the training and the resources that they need," said Casey.
Casey has sponsored bills to add rail inspectors and is pressing the US Department of Transportation to order the replacement of old tanker cars with new, more crash-resistant ones, but also to help train and equip local first responders.
Officials say they dodged a bullet in Vandergrift.
A tanker carrying Bakken crude derailed last year in Vandergrift, but because the weather was frigid and the train was traveling slowly, it did not explode.
But some 41 fire departments along the tracks of Westmoreland County have received virtually no training for responding to a derailment and don't have the money to get the equipment they need.
"We're talking about fire companies and you know, today being a Lenten Friday, they're having fish and pierogi sales to earn money or they're going to have a bingo tomorrow night," said Bud Mertz with Westmoreland County Emergency Management.
Casey would set up a new section of the federal emergency management agency to deal specifically with derailments and come up with a national plan to fund and train local first responders.
But the money for training and equipment will be months, maybe years, away – while the danger of these train derailments seems to be growing every day.
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