That
was true even at 3:30 a.m. on Thursday, when the deputy fire chief of
the flood-besieged city received even more bad news; an eastbound
102-car train derailed, leaving six sleek black rail cars filled with
flammable petroleum product stranded on the 101-year-old Bonnybrook
Bridge as it slowly collapsed into still-swollen Bow River.
It
would drop about 15 feet throughout the day, bringing Calgary closer,
inch-by-inch, to another disaster after a week that had been
unbearably chalk full of them.
With
resources stretched by more than a week of unprecedented flooding
that trashed thousands of homes, bridges and roads, the mayor lashed
out at Canadian Pacific. He also lamented the municipal government’s
lack of control over CP’s domain.
“How
is it that we don’t have regulatory authority over this when it’s
my guys down there risking their lives to fix it?” Mayor NaheedNenshi said.
Once
again, a swath of the city was shut down, creating gridlock so
intense that some drivers complained of commutes stretching three
hours. Again, Mr. Nenshi begged employers to keep their employees at
home.
Hunter
Harrison, the CEO of CP, said the piers of the bridge were built on
gravel, not bedrock. The flood caused the bridge to tilt, then crack,
derailing the cars as they travelled across the track early Thursday
at 14 kilometres per hour.
By
Thursday afternoon, acting fire chief Ken Uzeloc said the bridge had
been stabilized. The fuel-bearing tanks were anchored in place by
heavy train cars weighted with grain and stones. Secondary tethers
tied each tank in place.
There
was a small chance the train could explode.
“There
are still flammable liquids that are in there,” he said. “We have
that possibility … but my concern was more that a floating rail car
would float downriver, taking out a bridge that would impact the
stability of Deerfoot Road.’’
With
the train secure, city officials reopened major arteries time for
rush hour. But they still faced hours of arduous work.
If
crews tried to pull the cars while full, they could snap open like a
pill capsule, he said. Instead, empty cars were paired alongside the
damaged track and three pumps were installed to transfer the
petroleum distillate, a product used as a solvent in polishes, paint
thinner and paint.
It
would take several hours to complete pumping, Chief Uzeloc said; they
would then decide how to move the empty cars off the track.
James Carmichael, the regional senior investigator with the TransportationSafety Bureau, said two people were on hand to investigate the
incident. He believed it was too soon to say whether the flood
weakened the bridge.
“Right
now they are trying to stabilize it the best they can to do the work
they need to do to get it cleared off,” he said.
The
derailment forced a nearby wastewater treatment plant to evacuate,
leaving untreated sewage spilling into the urban waterway.
Messrs .Nenshi and Harrison met on Thursday, but it was clear the derailment
had strained relations between city hall and one of the city’s
largest companies.
“I’ll
be very blunt. I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this,” Mr.Nenshi said. “We’ve seen a lot of people lose their jobs at CP
over the last year. How many bridge inspectors did they fire?”
Mr.
Harrison disputed the mayor’s remarks, saying the Bonnybrook Bridge
was inspected five times, although it was unclear when the company
looked at the structure.
“We’ve
talked publicly about the downsizing, but we’ve not done anything
with the engineering personnel or bridge inspectors or supervisors of
the bridge inspectors,” Mr. Harrison told reporters at the
Emergency Operations Centre in Calgary, where he was to meet the
mayor.
“It
was clearly a failure of the piers at the bottom of the river,” he
said. “We couldn’t have seen anything from an inspection on top
unless there was severe movement as a result of the failure down
below.’’
After
the meeting, Mr. Nenshi said Canadian Pacific Railway had
apologized for the chaos caused by the train and that he and Mr.
Harrison and both agreed to work together more on safety.
Source:
nationalpost
Are
you an Optometrist??? Need a software? Visit VisualEyes
Bathroom
renovation?? Need some help? Just visit Bathmaster
Need
Product for Bathroom Renovation? Visit Topkote
.jpg)