A rail bridge collapsed about 4:00 a.m. this morning.... tracks are buckled and 5 cars are left hanging with the bridge... perilously close to the raging Bow River. Traffic is at a standstill and people are doing incredibly stupid things like racing up slippery grassy embankments and darting into wrong way traffic. Sometimes it's embarrassing to be part of the human race.
The bridge supposedly hasn't moved any more in the last while.... but, who knows when the whole structure along with the tanker cars could simply slide into the river. Then what?
Apparently 4 are loaded with petroleum based liquid...they are saying possibly a diesel type of substance....and one is supposed to be empty. Still checking manifest lists...
They can't place any booms because of the force of the already swollen and fast moving river which is bringing huge amounts of debris with it ...but, are trying to place some along banks further downstream to help if the cars leak.... or fall in I guess. I doubt the actual cars would make it past the other bridge immediately downstream, especially if they remain linked, but who knows... I guess they might slip under .. or... worse yet...wipe out the other bridge too...
And, now...the rain has stopped and we are having record high temperatures for the next several days....piles of garbage are beginning to stink ...we have hordes of new mosquitoes.. they are trying to limit garbage pickup to only our black bins and no recyclables right now, which is totally understandable .... the landfills are having trouble keeping up. There are even lines of fridges waiting near the entrance to the landfill sites....to be emptied of refrigerant before they can be dumped..... there must be thousands of those.... and more on the way.....
People are removing debris and pumping sewage filled water out of homes
....with no gloves and masks if you please. What? How ignorant and stupid can people be? The flood waters only killed 4 .....but, stupidity could well do in several thousand if they don't smarten up.
5 comments:
Hello,
I am praying that the disaster that can happen does not happen. Our bridges in the US really do need lots of work. It really blows my mind when funds to repair and rebuild is redirected into other special interest projects instead of where money really needs to be spent. Hopefully if those cars end up in the water, there will be minimum leakage and they will not strike the other bridge...here's praying... Meanwhile, you stay safe and dry..
hugzzzz
Pam
Oh gosh, that looks terrible! We had a huge bridge disaster in Minneapolis a couple of years ago; it was terrible. We hope everyone is ok.
Jerry and Ben
What a calamitous event. It is going to take some figuring to get these off the tracks and away from the river. don't even want to think of the domino effect if they don't.
Stay safe.xo
It is so sad to hear about all these problems with too much rain and others are having terrible problems because of no rain. I took one of the train trips across Canada several years ago and it was wonderful. To see this disaster is heartbreaking. Prayers for a safe end to this additional trouble.
Oh, how scary! And horrible for the area! I hope they can get this cleaned up quickly with little harm to the environment.
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