Jesse Watters on Ohio chemical catastrophe: We declared a national emergency over monkeypox, but not this?

Biden never shuts up about trains ,and he told us he was going to cure cancer. And now a train goes off the tracks, they light it on fire, it's probably going to give everybody cancer and the president calls a lid. They have the whole Ohio River contaminated. These chemicals are flowing downstream to West Virginia, and we haven't declared a national emergency.

When I completed graduate school I was offered a position in transportation planning in the Department of Transportation for a Midwestern state. I held that for about 3 years, and left after having my fill of severe bureaucratic frustration.

But not before being introduced to rail issues in the mid 1980’s. EOTI (end of train indicators) had pretty much replaced cabooses by that time. One state - Nebraska - had a legislature that was in the pocket of the rail unions, and they had a state law requiring trains over a certain length to have a caboose. This meant that a train which was traveling from NY to LA that traversed NE would have to stop and add a caboose before crossing any part of NE. Then they would stop and release the caboose once out of NE. Lawsuits were filed in Federal Court challenging this as an impairment of interstate commerce.

The ICC, which was within shouting distance of sunsetting at the time, got involved and the states all filed briefs. I had to review the briefs and pleadings for my state's DOT Secretary. Those defending the NE law (basically the rail unions) made laughably absurd arguments about how much was added to safety by the presence of the caboose crew. Mind you, we are talking about very long trains, some 2-3 miles in length. If the train hits something, the caboose crew has a long hike to the point where the accident was. And then they are just spectators. They do nothing to improve safety and prevent accidents.

I have not had contact with the industry in a long time, but I can imagine that telemetry is incredibly improved. End of train indicators probably send real time video, and there must be middle of train indicators as well.

“...the caboose crew has a long hike to the point where the accident was.”

It was for visual observation, to know when to stop the train. They have radios now.

“They do nothing to improve safety and prevent accidents.”

They were used for a long time so someone must have thought they were useful. I am sure some people on the ground who saw the flaming wheel would have wanted to notify the engineer.

A few months ago I looked at some spec sheets for EOT devices, wanted to know exactly what they do—none have any video capability. Also none of the manufacturers of EOT devices make a middle-of-train device.

EOT devices can sense the brake pipe pressure and transmit the readings and can also release the brake pipe pressure from the rear end of the train for quicker brake application.

That seems to be about all they do.

But why wouldn’t the fire also cause an explosion, with the increased heat and pressure? But no explosion did not occur, so maybe the fire was a better solution? Any chemists here?

It was a 'controlled burn'. A risky procedure, in it's own way, because.. yes, an explosion was always possible. But, better to try to let it burn in a specific direction than to allow the flames, and fuel to randomly go wherever they wanted.

An explosion would have been far worse. For one, the impact radius would have been huge. I'd be uncomfortable even being a mile away from such a blast. But, the worst part is... an explosion doesn't consume all of the chemicals. Rather, it physically spreads them out over a MUCH larger area.

Letting the material burn, in a controlled way, completely destroys 95+% of the hazardous material. That's a good start. There are some nasty by-products produced from the burning, like HCL. But, they are rather quickly dispersed to very low, non-hazardous levels or neutralized naturally by the environment.

Early in my career, I worked as an engineer in a plant that produced Vinyl Chloride Monomer. I'm pretty familiar with it. It's HIGHLY explosive. Not really super toxic. But, has high potential to cause cancer to someone who is routinely exposed, even to fairly low levels, over a very long time... like decades.

This event was a mess. No question. The black cloud was incredible to see. But, mother nature is pretty good at taking care of things like black clouds. Cleanup crews on the ground can get the ground and water back in good condition. I live downstream, on the Ohio river, and I'm not the least bit concerned about our drinking water. The levels of any VCM here will be so low, we probably won't even be able to measure it. And, we can measure at Part per Billion levels... ie; VERY low.

I'm not sure I really understand all the panic about this. I think the conservative news guys see it as a chance to make Biden look bad. And, maybe it is? But, they're scaring a lot of people who don't need to be frightened. There needs to be investigation, to find out what happened and why... but, chemical shipments are continuing, every day... and, they need to. They make possible virtually every part of all of our everday lives. Safely.

It is as if they are covering up for another Biden failure.

Three Legacy Media Outlets Have Spent Less Than 30 Combined Minutes Covering Ohio Train Crash
https://www.dailywire.com/news/three-legacy-media-outlets-have-spent-less-than-30-combined-minutes-covering-ohio-train-crash

East Palestine citizens were told they could return safely to their homes less than one week after the controlled burn; residents and first responders have since reported worrisome health issues such as coughing, sore throats, headaches, and diarrhea.

The organization also noted that Columbiana County, Ohio, is more than 93% white and largely conservative. Some 72% of residents cast their ballots for President Donald Trump in the 2020 election cycle, according to data from the Columbiana County Board of Elections.

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