City, region ready for rail disaster

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

In the wake of recent rail disasters across the country and the United States, the City of Oshawa and Region of Durham say they are prepared to handle such an event if it were to occur in our backyard on any of the hundreds of kilometres of train tracks that crisscross the region.

Over the past month, four trains carrying crude oil have derailed in Canada and the U.S., most recently in the town of Gogama, north of Sudbury, which sparked massive fires, contaminated waterways and forced evacuations.

At Oshawa Fire Services (OFS), emergency responders – specifically those with the hazardous materials teams – are trained to deal with the hazardous materials these trains could be carrying. Responders receive both practical and theoretical training on a monthly basis, explains Derrick Clark, the city’s deputy fire chief.

“Predominantly what they do is they train on the chemicals that could be carried on the cars and the response and how to handle that and anything that goes along with it,” Clark says.

The personal protective equipment worn by OFS responders was also updated recently to make suits flash resistant, an asset when working with volatile chemicals, Clark says.

However, potential rail disasters are difficult to address, as there are a high number of unknowns.

“Every case is specific, depending on what chemical, what product or what the situation is, so that’s how we train,” Clark says. “We train for the unknown.”

At the region, it is an “all-hazards” approach that attempts to deal with these unknowns. This approach lays out all the steps to be taken in any sort of disastrous event, including command centres to be set up, lines of communication to be made and the chain of command, explains Warren Leonard, director of the region’s emergency management office.

“There is a certain baseline of preparedness that we should have in place, that we do have in place, and they’re non-specific,” Leonard says of the plans. “They’re things that we’re going to go through no matter what the event might be. They’re things that are going to be applied in any kind of an event.”

The region also creates Hazard Identification and Risk Assessments (HIRA) that outline potential threats to the region, rail being among them.

“Rail safety, of course, we take seriously…we identify the different hazards that exist here in the region and we do an assessment on them and rail is on it,” Leonard says.

For Leonard, this approach allows the region to be ready to deal with any potential threats.

“For the most part, we use the all-hazards approach and it’s to develop a response capability, not knowing exactly what, or where or when something might happen, we make sure we can address it no matter what, no matter where, no matter when,” he says.

And at Oshawa Fire Services, Clark says he is confident his team can deal with a rail disaster if it were to happen in the city.

“We’re prepared to respond at any time to any rail incident so I think we’re in good shape as far as Oshawa Fire Services goes, as far as readiness and preparedness,” he says.

As well, both the city and region monitor those events that take place elsewhere in order to take any lessons that may have been learned and apply them to their own plans or into training exercises.

“We always monitor, at any time, anything of a major incidence that happens anywhere, whether it’s Canada or the States, we always take a look at that and do some lessons learned type things and see if we’re prepared to handle it,” Clark says.

The same is said by Leonard, who explains his office monitors events on an international scale as well.

“We monitor events of this nature, not just locally, the GTA, but around the province, nationally and internationally. We’re always trying to learn from other events and incorporate any of those lessons into what we do here,” he says.

These events can also help raise awareness of disaster-readiness to the general public as well, Leonard says.

“We want residents to be aware of the different risks and to communicate what those risks are. So when they see this as well, hopefully it will cause them to take stock of their own personal preparedness at their own homes, for their own families,” he says.

More information on disaster preparedness can be found on the region’s website at www.durham.ca/demo.