generalspeaking

Through This Town

"The windows are open and you hear this noise. You know the speed of a train. You know the noise of a normal train. You get used to it after 31 years. You say, 'That's not a fast train'. That's like a jet plane going by you. It was like, whoa."
"I know the survivors' guilt that is going to come. I know the stress of not having a job because your job is gone. I know how it is going to affect people. The rate of suicide goes up, drugs and alcohol abuse go up. I know what is coming."
"When you are alone and you have nothing to do, you think. And you relive. And you imagine. I know a little bit about what to expect because of 9/11. I had a brother in one of the towers. I had a brother on Wall St. who was in lockdown. I had a brother in Washington by the Pentagon and we didn't know if he was dead or alive."
"This wakes all of those emotions and you've just got to talk it through."
Meghan Plamondon Lac Megantic resident, volunteer

Rail World Inc. president Edward Burkhardt has said his company would partner with the Red Cross, insurers and governments in the funding of reconstruction of homes in Lac Megantic. "Our financial resources are going to be devoted to this. This comes first." His company has learned something from the tragedy; it will no longer depend on one-man train crews. "I really question right now whether that should continue (in the industry) -- I don't think it will. It certainly will not on this railway."

"I think he did something wrong. He told us that he applied 11 handbrakes and our general feeling is now that this is not true." The derailment and explosion in Lac Megantic with 20 bodies thus far pulled out of the smouldering wreckage and some thirty more being looked for will certainly not advantage the rail company that Edward Burkhardt represents. Their future prospect in the settlement of claims looks rather grim. This was no garden-variety, common oil spill or trail derailment in a yard.

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"Our railway runs through this town. We have a number of shippers who depend on rail service. So we hope that when the investigations are completed that we can go in and start to make a path through the wreckage and later we'll clean up all the wrecked cars and build track back and start to run trains through here again. Very carefully, I might tell you", said Rail World Inc.'s president, careful himself, to nuances of entitlements.

As well he might be. The owner of a somewhat related industry -- road construction -- feels otherwise than Mr. Burkhardt. "There is not one more bloody train that is going to run through this town", said Raymond Lafontaine. "Let's not hide under the covers. I am the president of eight companies. In each of those companies, I am the responsible person." 

Mr. Lafontaine is an employer of almost 200 people in Lac Megantic with his road construction companies. He is also now a man who has lost a son, two sisters-in-law and a valued employee as a result of the monumental tragedy this town has suffered.

He points an unforgiving finger of blame at the man whose company is responsible for destroying his town's business centre, its heritage and pride, but above all of depriving him and his family of beloved family members and friends. Carrying flammable cargo, an unattended train was parked on a main track on a slope, slipped its brake system to pick up killing speed, arriving in his town, an unlit black messenger of death.

Labels: Human Relations, Quebec, Tragedy

posted by Pieface @ Friday, July 12, 2013