Death toll climbs in Lac- Mégantic
Police warn of worse news ahead
LAC- MÉGANTIC, Que. — The CEO and chairman of the embattled rail company involved in the fatal LacMégantic derailment suggested Wednesday that the handbrakes on the oil tankers his company’s train was pulling to a refinery were not properly applied and that an engineer who parked the train before going off duty may be responsible.
Speaking to reporters shortly after arriving in Lac- Mégantic five days after the tragedy, which has now claimed 20 lives with another 30 people missing, Edward Burkhardt told reporters the engineer had been suspended without pay pending a police investigation.
“I don’t think he’ll be back working for us,” he said.
While cautioning that the investigation into the derailment and explosion is far from over, Burkhardt seemed to be singling out Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway ( MMA) engineer Tom Harding in his latest account of the events that led to the train breaking loose and careening downhill into LacMégantic early Saturday.
“I’m saying that it seems like adequate handbrakes were not set on this train and it was the engineer’s responsibility ( to do so),” Burkhardt said. “I think he did something wrong. ... He told us that he applied 11 handbrakes and our general feeling is now that that is not true.”
Repeated attempts to reach the train engineer over the last two days have been unsuccessful and the union representing him refused to comment Wednesday.
Just a day earlier the company called the engineer a “hero” for apparently rushing to the scene and managing to stop some of the ghost cars.
I think he did something wrong. ... He told us that he applied 11 handbrakes and our general feeling is now that that is not true.
EDWARD BURKHARDT CEO, MONTREAL, MAINE & ATLANTIC RAILWAY
The issue of culpability could carry deep financial consequences as threats of lawsuits have already surfaced, and various players are preparing for an expensive rebuilding effort.
The statement from Burkhardt came during a contrite visit to the battered town where he was heckled by locals while being escorted around by police. The question of whether handbrakes on the tanker cars had been activated — and, if so, how many — in addition to the airbrakes on the five locomotives appears central to the investigation into how the train got away.
In previous days, Burkhardt had accused the nearby Nantes, Que., fire department of turning off the locomotive and depriving the airbrakes of power when firefighters extinguished a fire Friday after the engineer had gone off duty and retired to a hotel.
In an about- face Wednesday, Burkhardt said he doesn’t think the Nantes fire department did anything “malicious” and that there was “no sabotage.”
Burkhardt’s arrival in LacMégantic attracted hecklers and seemed to darken the mood after five days of sometimes outrageous statements from company executives.
Burkhardt has become a lightning rod for palpable anger in Lac- Mégantic over the tragedy, in part because of comments perceived to have been flippant.
He joked in the days before his arrival that he might have to wear a bulletproof vest, and Wednesday, when asked about his net worth, retorted: “A whole lot less than I was on Saturday.”
He also joked about safety at one point while he was walking alongside a horde of journalists. More than a dozen news photographers and TV camera people walked backwards ahead of him to capture his image.
“Walking backwards is very dangerous,” Burkhardt said. “We’re having a conversation about safety and you guys are doing something very unsafe right now.”
Responding to criticism as to why it took him five days to come to the scene of the devastation, Burkhardt said he felt he could do more dealing with insurance companies, engineers and the media at his office in Chicago than he could have done working with a cellphone in Lac- Mégantic. “Our insurance inspectors had looked at the locomotive but we have not had time to do a complete investigation,” he said.
Burkhardt has seen the devastation, but not close- up. “I asked for accreditation to go into the yellow zone but it was denied,” he said, referring to the part of town flattened by the blast and fire. “It’s absolutely horrible, it looks like a war zone.”
Burkhardt offered an apology to townsfolk and said he wants to meet with victims of the disaster.
“I feel absolutely awful about this,” he said. “I understand the extreme anger ( from residents) and if I lived here I would be very angry with the company, too.”
Burkhardt said that his company will “do what we can, but we can’t roll back time.”
Following the news conference, Burkhardt was taken in an unmarked police car to meet with investigators at the provincial police station in LacMégantic, where he and MMA president Robert Grindrod spent more than four hours.
“Oh, all kinds of questions,” Burkhardt said to a reporter when he was asked what police had asked him. Burkhardt did not respond when asked whether he could face charges and declined to say whether police asked him about Harding, his suspended engineer. “I’m not going to answer any questions.”
The two executives left in a station wagon with Maine licence plates.
Meanwhile, as the number of confirmed dead climbed, Mayor Colette Laroche- Roy, police and fire officials said their team was slowly working to bring life back to normal.
Fire Chief Denis Lauzon said firefighters, working 10 to 12 hours a day wearing thick, insulated suits in the sweltering heat, were able to control the smouldering ruins.
To preserve the crime scene, Lauzon said fire crews would no longer hose down the site, relying on infrared sensors to keep a watchful eye on the temperature of oil tanks at the core of the accident scene. Those that did not explode are believed to hold the same type of crude oil that set the town and even the lake aflame.
But Lauzon said members of his own force are no longer assigned to the disaster scene. “It’s a small town and everybody knows somebody,” Lauzon said, saying he needs to minimize post- traumatic stress for his team.
“Everyone is mourning, everyone is in trauma,” said Jo Cooper, who signed up to help at the makeshift shelter at the high school . “Certain people are happy to go home, but at the same time, it is bittersweet. The whole town is in mourning. Even if they go home, they have to continue living with the reality that changed everything forever on Friday night.”
The federal Transportation Safety Board is investigating and provincial police are conducting a separate criminal probe in which they have already interviewed 70 people.
Police also warned of worse news ahead. “Now we are standing here with a number of 50 persons we are considering as missing and most probably dead in this tragedy,” said provincial police Insp. Michel Forget.