Yo,
Happy Friday, I hope everyone had a great week. However, I know a lot of people did not have a good week. In fact, there was so much going on this week, that some think the world is ending. We had spy balloons being shot down, UFOs being shot down, laser beams in the sky over Hawaii, Kenya splitting in half , more mass shootings, and something that is finally getting main stream attention; the train derailment in East Palestine, OH.
Do I think the world is ending? Absolutely not, I’m still bullish on humanity.
Let’s chat about what people are calling the “modern day Chernobyl” taking place in East Palestine. How it happened, what’s going on, and where it stacks up to other human caused disasters.
What happened?
A Northfolk Southern train of over 100 cars derailed in the small town of East Palestine. Now, train derailments happen all the time, the only difference with this one is that of those 100 cars, 20 of them were carrying highly hazardous materials. (one of which, phosgene, was used as a chemical weapon in WWI)
And we all know that hazardous materials go kaboom
And kaboom it went. There was a fire that was a quarter mile long with flames as high as 100 ft. Causing toxic fallout all over the surrounding areas. Material specialists are comparing it to “as if a nuke was set off” and “modern day Chernobyl” because of the fallout.
After three days, the fire had been tamed. So, what did they decide to do? Ah yes, a controlled burn of more toxic material to clear the railway for more trains to pass through. They decided to light the rest of the chemicals on fire (on purpose)
At the end of the day, the air in the surrounding areas has been deemed unsafe to breath, livestock and fish are dropping dead, the water has been contaminated (the Ohio River Valley provides water to over 5 million people), and all the residents are turning to mutants.
Bad joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we found these guys in the sewers.
The government has made Northfolk Southern responsible for the cleanup, and the company has already given all the residents $1,000 stipend for evacuation costs.
Why am I just now hearing about this?
There are a few opinions out there of why this is just now getting major news coverage after happening a week ago.
- Officials downplayed the evacuations: residents of the town were only required to evacuate for 24 hrs., during the fire and were allowed to return home the day after. To me, a one-day evacuation doesn’t scream “this is a really big deal”.
- Stakeholders: The top three stakeholders in Northfolk Southern (the train company) are Vanguard, BlackRock, and JPMorgan who all have a large influence on media.
- It’s a small town: East Palestine only has roughly 5,000 residents. Bottom line is that there weren’t too many people making noise about it until it got picked up by the main stream media outlets (like from,matt).
Hindsight’s 20/20
Hindsight is always 20/20, especially when it comes to human caused disasters. This case is no different. There are now reports that this train experienced problems earlier on the route and that workers on board expressed concerns about the trains length.
We see this all the time. Any time there is a big disaster, there are always red flags coming up after the fact that could’ve been caught (Bernie Madoff, Chernobyl, Flint Water Crisis, etc.).
That being said let’s see where this disaster stacks up among others, where those red flags may have been ignored.
Should’ve seen it coming
Here are some of the biggest man-made disasters in the U.S., as well as abroad for all the foreign readers:
United States:
- Deepwater Horizon: A BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing 11 people, leaking 210 million gallons of oil into the sea, and leading to the biggest marine accident in history. BP was held criminally responsible.
- Flint Water Crisis: The city of Flint began sourcing from the Flint River for drinking water. This contaminated water led people to lose hair and develop other health issues. Due to outdated infrastructure Flint is still unable to source their own clean water and relies on Detroit.
- Three-Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown: In 1979 a nuclear plant on an island in Pennsylvania nearly melted down, almost causing another Chernobyl.
- Nuclear Testing in Nevada: As part of the Manhattan Project in WWII and Cold War, nuclear testing in Nevada led to the repeated detonation of nuclear bombs which lead to years of radioactive fallout in Nevada and parts of Arizona and Utah.
- Dust Bowl: I didn’t know this was man-made, but apparently outdating and deep tilling techniques used for farming in the west led to excess soil to be dried out. Pair this with some winds and voila, you have the dust bowl.
Abroad:
- Fukushima Daiichi Accident: Following a major earthquake and 15 meter tsunami, an accident began leading to a nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Power Plant.
- Chernobyl: I’ve already mentioned Chernobyl enough today. Everyone know about Chernobyl, and if you don’t go check out the show on HBO it’s super interesting.
Moo Moo Express
Another manmade disaster? A dirty car! I’m selling my care this weekend and made sure to get a wash at Moo Moo so that I could get the most for it. Anything from the Low Fat Basic to the Creme de le Creme they’ve got you covered. They’ve got the best operators working around the clock and free vacuums so check em’ out #ad
A recurring theme
The obvious theme with these examples is “nuclear.” As a result of nuclear warfare and all these nuclear meltdowns there is a large public fear. Anytime the word “nuclear” is mentioned, people cringe.
Which sucks, because nuclear energy may be the most clean and sustainable form of energy on earth.
Enough doom and gloom, I’m still optimistic. Besides, it’s Friday, let’s have ourselves a weekend.
from, matt
