[ad_1]
The testimony comes after the NTSB released a trove of documents that cast doubt on the February 2023 vent-and-burn incident that sparked a massive cleanup effort and health concerns among residents of a small Ohio town. This follows on from what was released in 2017.
As part of an ongoing investigation, the NTSB has asked Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Fire Chief Keith Dravik and other officials to vent their vehicles carrying PVC or risk a major accident. He revealed that he was told he had only 13 minutes to decide whether to wait. Perhaps an uncontrollable and catastrophic explosion could occur.
Mr. Drabik, the commander of the East Palestine incident, later testified that he was “blindsided” by the hastily arranged schedule, which gave the company the green light to carry out the vent-and-burn operation.
“They were provided with incomplete information to make a decision,” Homendy said Wednesday. “There was another option: to cool it down.”
Mr. Homendy also said that experts from chemical transportation company Oxyvinyl told Norfolk Southern contractors that they did not believe a chemical reaction was occurring or could occur, but that they were not at the meeting to decide whether to vent. He said he told them he was not participating. -Burn has taken place. “They were not given complete information because no one was informed that Oxyvinyls was on the scene,” she said. “They were kicked out of the room.”
After the hearing, Vance said her testimony meant that railroads and their contractors had to do venting and venting to “facilitate the rapid movement of cargo,” given that trains were able to pass through again soon after the fire.・He stated that there was a question as to whether he was recommending burns. She said her own questioning was not aimed at criticizing DeWine or Mr. Dravik, but rather to find out whether decision-makers that day lacked complete information. Ta.
In an interview with The Washington Post before the hearing, DeWine said there were other viable options to prevent an explosion, given that none of the officials responsible at the time were informed of the possibility. He said there was no reason to believe that.
“You have to go with the facts that you know at the time,” DeWine said. “I’m not in a position to judge how useful what these people are saying right now. But what I can say is that they should raise their hands and come up with another scenario, another option. There was ample opportunity and no one did it.”
The decision to burn off the chemicals has come under scrutiny just days after it happened. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to Norfolk Southern President Alan Shaw that same month that the railroad “may have kept the rail line closed longer, but it may have been safer overall.” “I was unable to consider all possible courses of action, including sexual ones.” An approach to first responders, residents, and the environment. ”
Norfolk Southern and its contractors deny the claims and say the only way to keep people safe is to do a vent-and-burn. In testimony, contractors described an urgent and rapidly evolving scenario in which tank cars carrying dangerous chemicals were surrounded by a pool of fire and showing signs of instability.
After the train derailed on February 3, 2023, Norfolk Southern Railroad hired two contractors at the site, Specialized Professional Services, Inc. (SPSI) and Specialized, who specialize in transporting hazardous chemicals and industrial firefighting, to derail the train on February 3, 2023. – We relied on Response Solutions (SRS).
SPSI contractors said they believe the fire around the vehicle likely triggered a chemical reaction called polymerization, which could lead to a catastrophic explosion of the tank vehicle. SRS officials were also concerned that the reaction was occurring in one car. They recommended a vent-and-burn to minimize the risk to personnel if the car spontaneously exploded.
The contractor ruled out other options to remove the material, including transferring the product, drilling holes in the tank to relieve pressure, and re-railing tank cars still loaded with chemicals. They said these measures pose too great a risk to first responders.
However, the tank car, which was exhibiting high temperatures, began to cool and stabilize before vent-and-burn occurred, allowing first responders to wait and see if the vehicle could continue to cool and then be scrapped. Hamendi said this shows that. A non-destructive method. (On one of the five tank cars, the outside temperature increased, reaching a high of about 140 degrees Fahrenheit and then dropping to the mid-120s.) Drill a hole in the place and then burn out the tank car. When material leaks out.
“Given the excessive heat, high temperatures, and inability to apply adequate pressure to the vehicle, we had to conclude that a reaction, or polymerization, was highly likely.” The magazine reported that an SRS official said. NTSB report.
Officials from Oxyvinyls, a company that transported chemicals The company, which is being sued by Norfolk Southern to recover disaster costs, said it repeatedly told Norfolk Southern’s contractors that it did not believe polymerization was occurring. OxyVinyl’s technical manager told the SPSI president that given the high vehicle temperatures that would occur if this were to happen, OxyVinyls found that “there were no obvious signs of polymerization occurring inside the tank car.” ” he said.
“If the vent and burn option were pursued, the technical director expressed concerns to SPSI about the potential for a vapor cloud explosion and that the primary combustion by-product would be toxic and corrosive hydrogen chloride. ” states the report.
On February 6, 2023, contractors said in a meeting at East Palestine High School, attended by DeWine, Shapiro, and numerous other local officials and first responders, that vent-and-burn operations were not recommended due to the high risk. said it was the best option. The car may explode spontaneously. It also argued that all five vehicles needed to be evacuated and burned, as evacuating just one or two could increase the risk of pressure building up in other vehicles.
After that meeting, a small group, including DeWine and the incident commander, was asked to join Norfolk South in a separate room. SPSI’s president and the local SRS project manager told DeWine that he had only 13 minutes to decide whether to allow the vent-and-burn to proceed because the work needed to be done before sunset. . According to the NTSB report, incident commanders asked for another explanation of the vent-and-burn procedure and gave the team the green light, believing it was the only way to avoid a catastrophic explosion. The incident commander said he had not received conflicting information that the tank car might not explode.
Federal guidelines on vent-and-burn state that it should be used only as a last resort when all other methods of transferring the material have been exhausted.
In an interview, DeWine said discussions about the right course of action continued for hours before he was informed that sunset was approaching and a decision needed to be made quickly. He dismissed the 13-minute time frame as giving the misleading impression that the scenario was only discussed for a short time.
“If there were experts on the scene that day who knew all this information, they wouldn’t have passed that information on to the decision-makers,” DeWine said.
The hearing came as the Senate is still waiting to vote on a rail safety bill sponsored by Vance and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
[ad_2]
Source link
