Unfinished for over a year - but you might enjoy the chapters I did finish.
Chapter 1
Copyright by the author on date of publication or upload.
Wednesday. 13 July, 17:30
RUMBLE!
The predicted thunderstorms seem to be arriving on time or at least their noises are. It's sunny here at the moment and the weather radar shows a small rain cell maybe a mile North of us. The forecast includes "Strong gusty winds" so anything outside that is easily moved by the wind has either been tied down or moved inside an outbuild…
BOOM!
RUMBLE!! SCREECH!! THUD!! RUMBLE!! THUD!!
I felt the house shake during some of that and I heard dishes rattling in the kitchen cabinets. I've never heard a "SCREECH!!" in a thunderstorm except when a tornado takes a metal roof off a building. There were no tornadoes in the forecast and we've not had a Tornado Watch or Warning so where'd that noise come from? All that noise has to be something big and heavy moving oddly and impacting the ground. Maybe a train derailment at the crossing about two miles East of us? Turn on the public service scanner and see if…
'…smoke and fire. Maybe a tank car on the train fro …'
BOOM!
I think that sound verifies the "tank car" part of…
Flicker! Flicker! Beep!Beep!Beep! Beep!Beep! Beep!Beep!Beep! Beep!Beep!
The UPS serenade is telling me that power's out without the off, on, off, on, off to stay of a power co-op circuit breaker trying to reset. The power feed here comes via aerial lines that run within a couple hundred feet or so of that crossing so I can reasonably expect the explosion took down lines and maybe some poles. I think that means we're on our own for power until the HazMat folks have checked and cleaned that area and the NTSB has completed the on-site part of their investigation - things that might be measured in days? On the brighter side, we are more than two miles from that crossing, it's uphill all the way to us and the prevailing winds are Southwest to Northeast so we shouldn't be in the path of any noxious fumes from whatever chemicals made up that train - the typical train has about fifty tank cars of something industrial and often unpleasant or dangerous plus whatever is in the dozen or so boxcars. The million dollar houses a mile east of the crossing are probably not a good place to be today.
That aerial power feed supplies us and a few hundred other houses, one or two grocery stores, one gas station, a bank and maybe the post office and a library branch out here. And it supplies the U-verse carrier terminal so I should check whether… No internet, no TV, no landline phone so U-verse is down. I did read something about AT&T shutting that service down in a year or two so not surprising that they've done no backup power upgrades. They're planning on doing away with Operator Services and Directory Assistance in January of 2023 (unless the FCC steps in and says otherwise) - those incompetent SBC corporate folks would do anything to save a buck and try to rescue themselves from their own stupidity.
Pull up the listing of HazMat card numbers and associated chemicals on my laptop to have it available when the local TV stations get on the scene or they get a drone up…
'…Pumper 13, nearest hydrant is on the East side of the road, about a half mile up. Pumper 7, go the long way around and put foam on the fire from the other side of the crossing. One visible damaged tank car has "3421" which is potassium hydrogen difluoride solution and it's corrosive but it doesn't react with water. Check the other numbers before starting to hose things down.'
That's interesting, but how corrosive is it and what other things made up that train?
'This is Pumper 7; we're evacuating the daycare on this side of the fire. What's a safe distance from the…'
BOOM!
"Safe" is probably a lot farther away than that daycare: it's less than a quarter mile East of the crossing. Wonder what the death toll will be from this? How many firefighters and how many kids and adults at that daycare? This is rapidly becoming a small SHTF event with people dying and nothing that can be done to prevent it…
Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo!
That's the SAME weather radio.
'This is a Civil Emergency Message for Cherokee, Dade and Mason Counties. A train derailment has occurred on Cooper Road near County 139 in Mason County. Current winds are from the southwest so anyone living east of that location should evacuate to the South to get away from the potentially hazardous chemicals released from damaged tank cars. Anyone living north of that location should evacuate to the West. The chemicals in the tank cars range from corrosive to flammable to fatal if inhaled so this evacuation is immediate and total. The community centers and public schools in Munford and Pikeville are being opened to serve as shelters for those displaced by the evacuation order. This is life or death so you must evacuate now!'
We're sufficiently West of and high enough above the wreck to be OK, other than without power, so I should get some backup power going. There's nothing I can do right now to help with the train wreck situation - other than staying out of the way. It's several hours until dark but late enough in the day that there's not much solar power available, so first choice backup power at this hour is the 1600 watt inverter generator. It can power the fridge, the freezer, a small window air conditioner and some LED lighting until dark and it can top off the solar backup system's batteries if today's "Partly cloudy" forecast didn't provide enough sun to do that. Down to the basement to check the status of the backup system, get the 12/3 extension cord and the key to the equipment shed.
---
The gen's in place with a full gas tank and it started on the second pull. The 12/3 cord is plugged into the gen and I'll take the other end to the transfer switch.
That's done, so flip the switches from "Line" to "Gen" by load size: freezer, then window A/C, then fridge, then the battery charger for the solar system's batteries. The Kill-A-Watt meter shows the gen's putting out about 1400 watts and that should drop as the batteries reach full charge. It's a positive that today's "Partly cloudy" has kept the day's high temperature to 82F instead of the 94F of the previous sunny week - that means there's a little less work for the window A/C to do when it's just keeping one bedroom cool enough for sleeping.
Bzzt!Bzzt!
The power co-op's app, maybe? It is. Our power went out at 17:32 and the Estimated Restoration Time is "Assessing Damage". I should grab the rechargeable 7 inch HDTV and take it up with me to see if any local TV station has a camera on the ground or a helicopter or a drone watching the scene.
The local ABC affiliate has a chopper on the scene and the train is at least fifty cars long, mostly tank cars, but they're not zoomed in enough for me to be able to read the HazMat numbers on that 7 inch screen. Turn on the pure sine wave UPS for the A/V cabinet and then switch the 50 inch TV to "Antenna" and let it scan for stations. I'll have about 45 minutes of power for that TV.
The TV finds the ABC affiliate and now I can read some of those numbers; unfortunately, some of the tankers are around the curve on the North side of the crossing so their HazMat cards aren't readable. I should make a list of the ones I can read and then look up those numbers.
---
1073 - liquid oxygen - 2 cars
1075 - propane - 3 cars
1294 - toluene - 3 cars
2480 - methyl isocyanate - 1 car
9666 - military waste - 6 cars
OK, list is done for the cards I could read but there are maybe twenty more tank cars around the curve and I can't read any of those cards. It's probably safe to assume that they're filled with similarly non-people-friendly substances. Toluene is used a "starting fluid" for internal combustion engines, including diesels, instead of the ether of previous decades, among its other uses as a solvent, and inhalation can cause neurological damage - remember people sniffing super glue? Its use as a "starting fluid" guarantees it's flammable, as the card on that tanker shows. Methyl isocyanate is a pesticide ingredient and a very nasty chemical - in 1984, a methyl isocyanate leak at a chemical plant in Bhopal, India killed almost 4000 people and injured over half a million. That will need some serious intervention/containment as the vapor is heavier than air and seeks out the lowest places. Liquid oxygen isn't dangerous in and of itself, other than being cold, but it's propinquity to the toluene could make for a huge IED if they both leak or the heat of the fire explodes either tank since the toluene is between the liquid oxygen and the methyl isocyanate. "Military waste" could be almost anything, from slightly radioactive water to chemical or biological warfare agents being sent for disposal - not a good thing at any train wreck. This is a potentially huge disaster and people won't see the methyl isocyanate comi…
Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo!
'This is a Civil Emergency Message for Cherokee, Dade and Mason Counties. A train derailment has occurred on Cooper Road near County 139 in Mason County. Current winds are from the Southwest so anyone living East of that location should evacuate to the South to get away from the potentially hazardous chemicals released from damaged tank cars. Anyone living North of that location should evacuate to the West. The train's cargo includes methyl isocyanate which can kill if inhaled and causes skin damage on contact. You will NOT see the methyl isocyanate vapor before it causes damage to your body. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! If you do not have transportation, call 911 and mention how close you are to the derailment. This message is also going out by Amber Alert, Reverse-911 and all broadcast radio and TV stations.
'Repeating: YOU MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!'
That warning is probably a little late for most people within a half mile - maybe a mile or more - of the derailment. The two "BOOM!" that I heard earlier probably spread damage and burning fuel over a large area. Any leakage of liquids will run downhill to Harper's Creek and likely start killing off everything in those small wetlands before the HazMat folks can get any type of containment in place - those folks certainly can't work in an area with the potential for another "BOOM!" Guess we should write off using the park down there for several years - no more hikes to the remains of the old mill that was once powered by the creek…
---
Chapter 1
Copyright by the author on date of publication or upload.
Wednesday. 13 July, 17:30
RUMBLE!
The predicted thunderstorms seem to be arriving on time or at least their noises are. It's sunny here at the moment and the weather radar shows a small rain cell maybe a mile North of us. The forecast includes "Strong gusty winds" so anything outside that is easily moved by the wind has either been tied down or moved inside an outbuild…
BOOM!
RUMBLE!! SCREECH!! THUD!! RUMBLE!! THUD!!
I felt the house shake during some of that and I heard dishes rattling in the kitchen cabinets. I've never heard a "SCREECH!!" in a thunderstorm except when a tornado takes a metal roof off a building. There were no tornadoes in the forecast and we've not had a Tornado Watch or Warning so where'd that noise come from? All that noise has to be something big and heavy moving oddly and impacting the ground. Maybe a train derailment at the crossing about two miles East of us? Turn on the public service scanner and see if…
'…smoke and fire. Maybe a tank car on the train fro …'
BOOM!
I think that sound verifies the "tank car" part of…
Flicker! Flicker! Beep!Beep!Beep! Beep!Beep! Beep!Beep!Beep! Beep!Beep!
The UPS serenade is telling me that power's out without the off, on, off, on, off to stay of a power co-op circuit breaker trying to reset. The power feed here comes via aerial lines that run within a couple hundred feet or so of that crossing so I can reasonably expect the explosion took down lines and maybe some poles. I think that means we're on our own for power until the HazMat folks have checked and cleaned that area and the NTSB has completed the on-site part of their investigation - things that might be measured in days? On the brighter side, we are more than two miles from that crossing, it's uphill all the way to us and the prevailing winds are Southwest to Northeast so we shouldn't be in the path of any noxious fumes from whatever chemicals made up that train - the typical train has about fifty tank cars of something industrial and often unpleasant or dangerous plus whatever is in the dozen or so boxcars. The million dollar houses a mile east of the crossing are probably not a good place to be today.
That aerial power feed supplies us and a few hundred other houses, one or two grocery stores, one gas station, a bank and maybe the post office and a library branch out here. And it supplies the U-verse carrier terminal so I should check whether… No internet, no TV, no landline phone so U-verse is down. I did read something about AT&T shutting that service down in a year or two so not surprising that they've done no backup power upgrades. They're planning on doing away with Operator Services and Directory Assistance in January of 2023 (unless the FCC steps in and says otherwise) - those incompetent SBC corporate folks would do anything to save a buck and try to rescue themselves from their own stupidity.
Pull up the listing of HazMat card numbers and associated chemicals on my laptop to have it available when the local TV stations get on the scene or they get a drone up…
'…Pumper 13, nearest hydrant is on the East side of the road, about a half mile up. Pumper 7, go the long way around and put foam on the fire from the other side of the crossing. One visible damaged tank car has "3421" which is potassium hydrogen difluoride solution and it's corrosive but it doesn't react with water. Check the other numbers before starting to hose things down.'
That's interesting, but how corrosive is it and what other things made up that train?
'This is Pumper 7; we're evacuating the daycare on this side of the fire. What's a safe distance from the…'
BOOM!
"Safe" is probably a lot farther away than that daycare: it's less than a quarter mile East of the crossing. Wonder what the death toll will be from this? How many firefighters and how many kids and adults at that daycare? This is rapidly becoming a small SHTF event with people dying and nothing that can be done to prevent it…
Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo!
That's the SAME weather radio.
'This is a Civil Emergency Message for Cherokee, Dade and Mason Counties. A train derailment has occurred on Cooper Road near County 139 in Mason County. Current winds are from the southwest so anyone living east of that location should evacuate to the South to get away from the potentially hazardous chemicals released from damaged tank cars. Anyone living north of that location should evacuate to the West. The chemicals in the tank cars range from corrosive to flammable to fatal if inhaled so this evacuation is immediate and total. The community centers and public schools in Munford and Pikeville are being opened to serve as shelters for those displaced by the evacuation order. This is life or death so you must evacuate now!'
We're sufficiently West of and high enough above the wreck to be OK, other than without power, so I should get some backup power going. There's nothing I can do right now to help with the train wreck situation - other than staying out of the way. It's several hours until dark but late enough in the day that there's not much solar power available, so first choice backup power at this hour is the 1600 watt inverter generator. It can power the fridge, the freezer, a small window air conditioner and some LED lighting until dark and it can top off the solar backup system's batteries if today's "Partly cloudy" forecast didn't provide enough sun to do that. Down to the basement to check the status of the backup system, get the 12/3 extension cord and the key to the equipment shed.
---
The gen's in place with a full gas tank and it started on the second pull. The 12/3 cord is plugged into the gen and I'll take the other end to the transfer switch.
That's done, so flip the switches from "Line" to "Gen" by load size: freezer, then window A/C, then fridge, then the battery charger for the solar system's batteries. The Kill-A-Watt meter shows the gen's putting out about 1400 watts and that should drop as the batteries reach full charge. It's a positive that today's "Partly cloudy" has kept the day's high temperature to 82F instead of the 94F of the previous sunny week - that means there's a little less work for the window A/C to do when it's just keeping one bedroom cool enough for sleeping.
Bzzt!Bzzt!
The power co-op's app, maybe? It is. Our power went out at 17:32 and the Estimated Restoration Time is "Assessing Damage". I should grab the rechargeable 7 inch HDTV and take it up with me to see if any local TV station has a camera on the ground or a helicopter or a drone watching the scene.
The local ABC affiliate has a chopper on the scene and the train is at least fifty cars long, mostly tank cars, but they're not zoomed in enough for me to be able to read the HazMat numbers on that 7 inch screen. Turn on the pure sine wave UPS for the A/V cabinet and then switch the 50 inch TV to "Antenna" and let it scan for stations. I'll have about 45 minutes of power for that TV.
The TV finds the ABC affiliate and now I can read some of those numbers; unfortunately, some of the tankers are around the curve on the North side of the crossing so their HazMat cards aren't readable. I should make a list of the ones I can read and then look up those numbers.
---
1073 - liquid oxygen - 2 cars
1075 - propane - 3 cars
1294 - toluene - 3 cars
2480 - methyl isocyanate - 1 car
9666 - military waste - 6 cars
OK, list is done for the cards I could read but there are maybe twenty more tank cars around the curve and I can't read any of those cards. It's probably safe to assume that they're filled with similarly non-people-friendly substances. Toluene is used a "starting fluid" for internal combustion engines, including diesels, instead of the ether of previous decades, among its other uses as a solvent, and inhalation can cause neurological damage - remember people sniffing super glue? Its use as a "starting fluid" guarantees it's flammable, as the card on that tanker shows. Methyl isocyanate is a pesticide ingredient and a very nasty chemical - in 1984, a methyl isocyanate leak at a chemical plant in Bhopal, India killed almost 4000 people and injured over half a million. That will need some serious intervention/containment as the vapor is heavier than air and seeks out the lowest places. Liquid oxygen isn't dangerous in and of itself, other than being cold, but it's propinquity to the toluene could make for a huge IED if they both leak or the heat of the fire explodes either tank since the toluene is between the liquid oxygen and the methyl isocyanate. "Military waste" could be almost anything, from slightly radioactive water to chemical or biological warfare agents being sent for disposal - not a good thing at any train wreck. This is a potentially huge disaster and people won't see the methyl isocyanate comi…
Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo! Bee-doo!
'This is a Civil Emergency Message for Cherokee, Dade and Mason Counties. A train derailment has occurred on Cooper Road near County 139 in Mason County. Current winds are from the Southwest so anyone living East of that location should evacuate to the South to get away from the potentially hazardous chemicals released from damaged tank cars. Anyone living North of that location should evacuate to the West. The train's cargo includes methyl isocyanate which can kill if inhaled and causes skin damage on contact. You will NOT see the methyl isocyanate vapor before it causes damage to your body. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! If you do not have transportation, call 911 and mention how close you are to the derailment. This message is also going out by Amber Alert, Reverse-911 and all broadcast radio and TV stations.
'Repeating: YOU MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!'
That warning is probably a little late for most people within a half mile - maybe a mile or more - of the derailment. The two "BOOM!" that I heard earlier probably spread damage and burning fuel over a large area. Any leakage of liquids will run downhill to Harper's Creek and likely start killing off everything in those small wetlands before the HazMat folks can get any type of containment in place - those folks certainly can't work in an area with the potential for another "BOOM!" Guess we should write off using the park down there for several years - no more hikes to the remains of the old mill that was once powered by the creek…
---
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