Instead, the Biden family name has really stood for only two things: buffoonery and corruption. For fifty years, Joe Biden has managed to hold onto some slice of power in D.C. as a senator, vice president, and Oval Office stooge not because he is renowned for his erudition or virtue but rather because his doltish behavior and venal character make him ideal for others to control. Perhaps no other Washington relic has accomplished so little for the American people over such a prolonged government career or managed to harness those defects for lucrative advancement more successfully than China Joe.
JOE BIDEN'S BIGGEST HANDLER IS LARRY FINK OF BLACKROCK. THEY PUMPED MORE THAN $30 MILLION INTO BIDEN'S CAMPAIGN AND WERE REWARDED BY LETTING GAMER LAWYER BRIAN DEESE OF BLACKROCK OPERATE OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE - Google it!
A Norfolk Southern Policy Lets Officials Order Crews to Ignore Safety Alerts
In October, months before the East Palestine derailment, the company also directed a train to keep moving with an overheated wheel that caused it to derail miles later in Sandusky, Ohio.
Norfolk Southern allows a monitoring team to instruct crews to ignore alerts from train track sensors designed to flag potential mechanical problems.
ProPublica learned of the policy after reviewing the rules of the company, which is engulfed in controversy after one of its trains derailed this month, releasing toxic flammable gas over East Palestine, Ohio.
The policy applies specifically to the company’s Wayside Detector Help Desk, which monitors data from the track-side sensors. Workers on the desk can tell crews to disregard an alert when “information is available confirming it is safe to proceed” and to continue no faster than 30 miles per hour to the next track-side sensor, which is often miles away. The company’s rulebook did not specify what such information might be, and company officials did not respond to questions about the policy.
The National Transportation Safety Board will be looking into the company’s rules, including whether that specific policy played a role in the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine. Thirty-eight cars, some filled with chemicals, left the tracks and caught fire, triggering an evacuation and agonized questions from residents about the implications for their health. The NTSB believes a wheel bearing in a car overheated and failed immediately before the train derailed. It plans to release a preliminary report on the accident Thursday morning.
ProPublica has learned that Norfolk Southern disregarded a similar mechanical problem on another train that months earlier jumped the tracks in Ohio.
In October, that train was en route to Cleveland when dispatchers told the crew to stop it, said Clyde Whitaker, Ohio state legislative director for the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, or SMART. He said the help desk had learned that a wheel was heating up on an engine the train was towing. The company sent a mechanic to the train to diagnose the problem.
Whitaker said that it could not be determined what was causing the wheel to overheat, and that the safest course of action would have been to set the engine aside to be repaired. That would have added about an hour to the journey, Whitaker said.
But Whitaker said the dispatcher told the crew that a supervisor determined that the train should continue on without removing the engine.
Four miles later, the train derailed while traveling about 30 miles per hour and dumped thousands of gallons of molten paraffin wax in the city of Sandusky.
Records from the Federal Railroad Administration, the agency responsible for regulating safety in the railroad industry, show that Norfolk Southern identified the cause of the October derailment as a hot wheel bearing. Whitaker said this bearing was on the same engine that originally drew concerns.
A spokesperson for the FRA said the agency’s investigation into the derailment is ongoing. The agency did not say whether it was examining the role of any Norfolk Southern officials in deciding to keep the damaged engine on the train. It’s still unknown what role, if any, the help desk played in the final decision.
This month, 20 miles before Norfolk Southern’s train spectacularly derailed in East Palestine, the help desk should have also gotten an alert. As the train rolled through Salem, it crossed a track-side sensor. Video footage from a nearby Salem company shows the train traveling with a fiery glow underneath its carriage.
If, like the Sandusky train, this one was dangerously heating up, a key question for investigators will be whether the help desk became aware and alerted the crew, and if it did, why the crew was not instructed to stop. The NTSB told ProPublica it is reviewing data from the Salem detector and those before it on the train’s route.
Norfolk Southern declined to say whether members of the train’s crew received an alert before the derailment and, if they did, whether the help desk told them to disregard it. The company did not address questions about its policy giving its help desk leeway to ignore such alerts. A spokesperson said that the company’s detector network is a massive safety investment, and that its trains rarely require troubleshooting.
ProPublica asked officials at the six other large freight railroad companies whether they have similar policies allowing employees to disregard such alerts. CSX and Burlington Northern Santa Fe said they don’t, and Canadian National said that no one can instruct a crew to continue traveling when they receive an alert “requiring them to stop the train.” Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern did not respond.
While some employees and outside experts say there are times in which such policies safely benefit business operations, union officials believe they are emblematic of Precision Scheduled Railroading, the most controversial — and profitable — innovation that’s come out of the country’s seven biggest railroads, the so-called Class 1s, in the last decade. It prioritizes keeping rail cars and locomotives in constant motion.
A Tale of Two Train Wrecks: The East Palestine Disaster Response
Recently, there were two major train wrecks in East Palestine, Ohio—one literal, on February 3rd, and the second, figurative—the fumbling response to the disaster.
Vinyl chloride, phosgene and hydrogen chloride gases, as well as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were released into the air, soil and water. Even though the “all-clear” was sounded on February 8th, residents are still uncertain whether their health has been compromised, if their homes are safe to occupy and if their water is fit to drink—especially given the new concerns about dioxins and acrolein.
The arrest of a reporter at a press conference didn’t help things, and when it came time for the principals of Norfolk Southern to attend a town hall, they were no-shows.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg did not acknowledge the disaster until several days had passed, and President Biden also waited before calling the mayor. Despite Gov. Mike DeWine’s multiple requests, FEMA claimed that the community was not eligible for assistance—fortunately, this decision was reversed, but not until two critical weeks had passed.
Even the Chinese Foreign Ministry mocked Washington’s response, calling it #OhioChernobyl. One would hope there was not some other agenda in play—with more than 70% of Columbiana County voters casting their ballots for President Trump in 2020; this is definitely “MAGA country”.
With risk communication, you never have a second chance to make a first impression, so it is no surprise that many residents of East Palestine have already “lawyered up,” but when they sought guidance about their personal health issues, they were told to call their medical providers. The average primary care doctor has minimal training in toxicology, and may not know the correct lab tests to order. Although there were potential health concerns almost immediately after the derailment, it took two weeks before a community clinic was set up in a local church by the Ohio Department of Health, initially staffed by nurses and a toxicologist.
This delay is why residents should have been permitted to see independent physicians of their choice right away, specifically, doctors trained in occupational and environmental medicine. It is important to do a baseline exam with lab testing for those exposed to vinyl chloride, as well as VOC’s such as: ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene and but
In addition to vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene and but
In addition to this, the EPA has recently ordered Norfolk Southern to start testing for dioxins, which can be formed as combustion byproducts that are both toxic and carcinogenic. Dioxins were found in Agent Orange, the infamous defoliant/herbicide used during the Vietnam War, and they were also the hazardous chemicals found in Times Beach, MO that led to the eventual abandonment of the entire town which became an EPA Superfund site.
There is a sharp contrast between how toxic exposures are supposed to be handled in the workplace versus exposures involving community members--that is because OSHA standards only govern the workplace.
When railway employees were exposed to toxic chemicals from the wreck, they should have quickly been evaluated, and the required medical surveillance exams performed, per the applicable standard. It is unclear, however, whether this actually happened. Also left out in the cold were public sector employees like fire, EMS, transportation and law enforcement workers. This is because OSHA standards do not apply to them in the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The Chief Medical Officer of Norfolk Southern would have been aware of this, and it would be worthwhile to tap into their expertise to help guide appropriate medical evaluations of community members and public sector employees who were exposed to the same toxins that their employees were.
Given the considerable number of train derailments every year, there will be similar scenarios again. We need to be better prepared for it, and improved collaboration must be facilitated between the railroads’ medical and safety
Dr. Williams is a board-certified public health physician, Fellow of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and former medical consultant for the Wisconsin Central Railroad. He is also a trained first responder who has worked several disasters, including a railroad tank car HAZMAT leak and can be found on Twitter @MedicusOmnibus
Image: Screen shot from CBS video, via YouTube
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