> Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, said the compounds spilled can cause headaches, eye and nose irritation even at levels considered safe, but that the "measured facts" show air sampling is not reporting any dangers.
The data is that there is nothing to report.
The burn off took place over two weeks ago - I'm not sure why we would be looking for dangerous vapors still.
> Railroad union officials said they have been warning that such an accident could happen because railroad cost-cutting harmed safety measures. [...] The train of three locomotives and 150 freight cars [...] 20 of the cars were carrying hazardous materials, including 10 that derailed. The NTSB said 38 cars in total left the tracks and that the ensuing fire damaged an additional 12.
Maybe put hazardous materials on shorter trains that are in less danger of derailing? But yeah, ok, that wouldn't be as profitable for the railroads...
Hey wow remember those rail strikes a couple months back? The ones where none of the media talked about what the workers wanted except for allegedly-dubious demands for "sick days"? The ones where "Amtrak Joe" pulled all the strings he could to shut it down? I wonder what they were so adamant about back then...?
Was this crash related to labor safety or mechanical? I got the impression that this might have happened because the conductor was told not to stop until it hit some sort of secondary wheel/axle temperature check, it had already failed one.
Not that I disagree with the busting of the strike but it is important to not conflate the two issues. If the above is true this could be more related to Trumps repeal of ECP brakes.
They are running on skeleton crews to reduce costs and increased speeds to boost production. If there is no one there to pull the brakes it doesn't matter what kind of brakes they have.
There was a conductor though? I am not disagreeing that the labor practices going with rail workers is not right, especially with the ability the federal government has to jump in. Only pointing out that this appears to be a mechanical failure, not a labor safety failure.
The engineer was ordered by dispatch to ignore safety regulations when the warning tripped and did not have the labor protection to tell them no it is unsafe we are stopping and doing a safety inspection.
It's complicated. Rail workers are represented by a union but they are also transportation employees and heavily constrained in how and when they are allowed to strike without pulling jail time for disruption of Federal transit.
Rail workers work under a completely different set of labor laws than virtually every other industry. They do not have the same protections, workers compensation or union rules than other industries do.
I’m not an expert on the intricacies of it, but the way a guy explained to me is to he union cannot or will not protect members for safety work stoppages.
As a society, we allow these particular laborers to be forced to labor, even when it is unsafe for them. We are complicit. It will happen to us too, and we will have nobody to complain to.
This is a disingenuous argument. None of what rail workers have requested in their collective negotiations would have prevented this accident.
The engineer was aware of the bearing failure more than 20 miles before the accident site, reported it to management and the railroad’s management ordered him to continue moving. No amount of paid sick days will fix that kind of problem.
You could have 100 staff on every train and it wouldn’t prevent an accident like this one.
You are making exactly the kind of error I was trying to hedge against. If you think the rail workers were not asking for improvements in safety protocols and regulations, you allowed yourself to get duped by the union busters and their evergreen accomplices, corporate news media.
No. Because longer (freight) trains with dispersed multiple engine units pulling and pushing freight cars with old braking systems, have different driving physics and characteristics. They are not a good fit.
That seems to assume the probability of derailment is independent of the length of the train. If, at a certain size, doubling the length of a train more than doubles the probability of derailment, you are better off with shorter trains.
Shorter trains would also mean less severe derailments. Shorter trains also mean that trains are in risky areas for less time, less time decelerating and accelerating, so derailment could be far less than double.
Shorter trains would also make coordination easier, because the current trains are too long for bypass tracks so currently none of these trains can pass each other and it tacks a very long time for a multi-mile train to clear the tracks. Allowing trains to actually overtake each other again would help with congestion, but that mostly helps Amtrack so companies don't care.
No it doesn’t. Doubling the number of trains doesn’t double the number of vehicles if each train is half as long.
You don’t know what you’re talking about here. Longer trains are harder to handle and end up with dynamic forces down their length that are less visible to the drivers. Long enough trains can lead to severe in-train dynamics that the drivers aren’t even aware of which in turn can also produce dangerous vertical wheel-rail contact force scenarios that cause derailment risk to skyrocket.
Is there? It's been all over this site, all over twitter, and all over AM radio around me. NPR has reported about it, as have other major media outlets. Yet I keep seeing people insist it's "not being talked about".
How much unidentified flying stuff getting shot at is happening in comparison? Very little new is happening on the derail/disaster to report about. It's one ongoing event everybody already knows about versus lots of little events that keep happening. By definition, the former one is news.
What coverage do you want to see that isn't happening?
The National Media apparatus is not putting pressure on the right entities to ensure transparency and accountability. They have no problem doing that when it suits their political objectives. Wall to wall coverage of shit most people barely give a shit about for weeks on end with no changes but endless questions.
Here's an issue that has very grave implications for us all and suddenly they're not interested in asking the right questions of the right people anymore. You don't find that remotely disappointing or curious?
If the 'wrong' people were in office they'd have the sainted mayor talking about how much they need the federal help they're not getting. Why haven't they even bothered asking FEMA for help by the way? Maybe a competent media would ask those questions.
Take this as a sign the news sources you consume are exclusively biased in a single direction. The top Bing News result for "Ohio" is a Fox News anchor saying exactly what you claim no-one is: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/jesse-watters-o...
I've seem that. Thats not news thats commentary, its a big distinction that not enough people are aware of. My sources are pretty broad.
News is original reporting and going to the primary sources of a given story. Commentary sources usually function as secondary or tertiary sources and typically lack the resources to hound government officials, wait outside their office, spend tons of time digging up FOIAs for issues that may or may not pan out, etc.
Figuring out whats happening with a hazardous derailment is not the job of a Tucker or Watters, thats the job of an inquisitive on the ground journalist. Which every news agency employs but very selectively uses.
Why has FEMA not been contacted for assistance? What went into the decision to burn it off? What are the implications of that for local residents? How long are local residents going to live with this? What are we going to do to help the local ecology? What recourse is there for local residents who develop health issues from this? How long is this whole thing supposed to last in the water table? What are they gonna do to help prevent it?
I could go on. Genuinely asking, could you not think of one of those? Aren't you curious about the decisions being made?
>> We are monitoring the incident and remain in close contact with local officials who are handling the response on the ground.
Sounds good to me. Not every happening in the country needs a dedicated slush fund. If officials determine that this does, FEMA has already been in close contact with the people who they need to be in close contact with. You want to be the one who determines this? Run for office or apply for the job.
> What went into the decision to burn it off? What are the implications of that for local residents?
>Sounds good to me. Not every happening in the country needs a dedicated slush fund. If officials determine that this does, FEMA has already been in close contact with the people who they need to be in close contact with. You want to be the one who determines this? Run for office or apply for the job.
You may be satisfied by tweets when it comes to government accountability but the point is not that they should have it's an explanation why not.
> Did you do any research at all or just expect the media to spoon feed you answers?
The sourcing in the article you provided is not the govt. It's random people from tiktok and a random expert (who didn't make the claim you're asserting). It appears you're the one not doing the research. Try reading before condescending.
>Not something that can be answered by anything but waiting and seeing.
absolutely false.
The difference here is not one of opinion, it's how easily satisfied you are with the information that is already out there. FEMA tweets vaguely, a tiktoker explains hazmat science, and satisfies your every curiosity. I'm not so easily satiated for one of the largest eco disasters in recent memory at least.
> I'm not so easily satiated for one of the largest eco disasters in recent memory at least.
If this were true I'd expect you to be the one to have found all the sources I've been linking to, answering the questions you've been asking. But instead I have. And I'm sick and tired of running around doing your research for you while you move the goalposts.
From now on: if you choose to respond, include a source.
You may be satisfied by tweets when it comes to government accountability but the point is, not that they should have, it's an explanation why not.
Source what? Lmao you're the one making claims citing crap sources that you're not even reading telling me to do my own research. I'm not making claims, i'm asking questions.
The government would be the ones who were party to the decision. Are you even reading what you're replying to?
>Justify.
Not a new compound, long history of use near and on humans.
>And I'm sick and tired of running around doing your research for you while you move the goalposts.
Search queries and skimming headlines is not research.
> Not a new compound, long history of use near and on humans.
Then find the answer yourself.
> claims citing crap sources
Hilarious. I cite experts, you say they don't count unless they're in the government. I cite the government, you call it a "crap source". Quit digging through HN replies and read an article.
> I'm not making claims, i'm asking questions.
> > Here's an issue that has very grave implications for us all and suddenly they're not interested in asking the right questions of the right people anymore.
That's a claim the questions you presented (What went into the decision to burn it off?) weren't asked. And I resoundly proved it false. But you've gone on to move the goalposts to kingdom come.
I'm not qualified in the field of hazmat exposure. I do know there are experts in it, and it is extensively studied. The answer i'm looking for is bespoke to this particular situation. I don't have live stats on the PPM dilution of Vinyl Chloride or its byproducts in every area it has reached.
I didn't call your gov link a crap source. I was referring to the newsweak article you didn't read that cited a tiktok account as a source.
>That's a claim the questions you presented (What went into the decision to burn it off?) weren't asked. And I resoundly proved it false.
The gov article you linked is from 2/6, today the Governor came out and revealed info that demonstrates that article is a very limited perspective of what went into the decision to burn it off (such as consulting the DoD). There's still a lot more information that needs to be fleshed out pertaining to that question; it hasn't been fully answered. It may never be.
Are you arguing to argue? I'm not sure what your argument is . Our only difference this entire time is what amount of information satisfies us as i've already pointed out. You've said Jesse Watters and Tiktok accounts should be plenty satisfying, i'm saying this requires lots of questions and investigation it hasn't yet gotten.
What advancements has there been with the balloons? The entire time its been "its definitely not aliens, but we don't know what it is, and we can't recover the debris for reasons"
Is the ecological damage and impact to residents not an ongoing event? Elected officials responses to the event/pressing them for one, informing people of proposed changes to make sure it doesn't happen again
I have at this point heard, saw, read 10x as much about this damn derailment as the multiple objects downed around north america. In fact, the fourth one was barely even referred to in the places people post stuff, while there were three instances of headline articles on the front page all with top comments saying "the media isn't reporting on this and is instead reporting on the balloons"
Like... It's just not true?
Right now, on r/news, 7 of the top 25 articles are about Ohio, plus an extra article about an entirely different small industrial accident somewhere else, with only two articles about the balloons, specifically China's bitching about them.
The derailment was almost two weeks ago; last week that sentiment was mostly true. The story seems to only have really blown up this past weekend, and people are kind of still stuck on how it wasn't a big story until then.
Are MSM reports clearly stating there's a massive black cloud that will likely rain acid? Are they showing fish floating belly up? Are they covering the farmers saying animals are dying and becoming ill many miles away?
Are they showing the panicked videos all over twitter and tiktok showing residents and their relatives stating MSM news is not telling the real story, that nobody seems to be taking care of them and that some have become quite ill?
Radios don't support video, but apart from that yeah pretty much. Quite literally the top result when I search on twitter for "Ohio" is a tweet from several days ago with a photo of the cloud and talk of acid rain, others have photos about the dead livestock and fish. They've been viewed 40M+ times. https://mobile.twitter.com/realstewpeters/status/16248854664...
This news is nowhere near as secret as people want to believe. I don't know why so many are convinced it is. Maybe some desire to feel part of a small "in the know" group?
My point was the widely-available posts on social media, and specifically their focus, does not match up with what is shown in the Main-Stream Media (MSM), meaning major stations such as MSNBC, CNN etc.
These outlets are reporting on it, but given the reality on the ground, it's disingenuous or outright misleading at best. The fact people impacted are complaining of a lack of safety, help and awareness is extremely concerning.
It's on the front page of MSNBC, above the fold, with a video containing pretty much everything you listed. It's on the front page of CNN, below the fold, with statements from officials regarding the items you listed. It's on the front page of Fox news, several times over, above and below the fold, with interviews with locals, congress-people, and officials discussing the health impacts.
I looked at the first two and neither had a hit for the word "acid". The first seemed to shift the issues onto a chance to rip into the GOP. Dig into the blame part after everyones safe, surely? The second had this:
"There has been no evidence of non-aquatic species suffering from the derailment, she said, and they haven’t had any concerns about that."
This is exactly opposite to many claims made by people actually there.
In all these articles seem to misrepresent/minimise versus reports on the ground, exactly as I stated.
I didn't have time to watch the Fox News videos, maybe they're different?
> When asked about anecdotal reports of people getting headaches and sore throats, and of animals, such as cats and chickens, dying near the train derailment, Ohio Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said that air quality does not appear to be the source.
You can disagree with the officials if you like, that doesn't change the fact that the news reporters asked them about the issues you mentioned, and they gave an official response. This is what the news is for!
All in all this is a dumb discussion. The G**P claimed that no one was talking about this, I show that every major media outlet has this as front page news, then people just chime in to say that... the news the media reports doesn't exactly match their preconceived notions based on looking at TikTok? I say that's great! It'd be far, far, far worse if every news outlet and social media were presenting the same narrative.
> the news reporters asked them about the issues you mentioned, and they gave an official response. This is what the news is for!
Wrong. Journalism begins, not ends there.
> I show that every major media outlet has this as front page news
That'd be like saying they had cigarette harms as front page news by stating they're safe and everyone should smoke.
I disagree it's acceptable if news outlets downplay what's happening to real people, and instead claim everything's how stakeholder PR would prefer it be presented. Maybe one day you'll experience what that feels like. But I hope not.
Meanwhile I'm struggling to find a single instance of a balloon story on their front page, out of like 100 articles. Why isn't anyone talking about the balloons!?
The burning vinyl chloride produces hydrogen chloride (which becomes hydrochloric acid when in solution with water). Tens of thousands of pounds of it was present.
So the answer is probably yes, with it being a lot harder to say what the exact effects are (because how much did it dilute in the atmosphere before going into solution, how quickly did it fall in rain, etc.).
It seems likely enough that there will be some rain that is moderately effected and not much else (because in terms of mixing with the atmosphere, tens of thousands of pounds isn't that much material).
There used to be a town in Missouri called "Times Beach", before it was contaminated by dioxin. They had to evacuate the entire town, demolish every building, and spend years incinerating the soil.
- "The burning vinyl chloride produces hydrogen chloride (which becomes hydrochloric acid when in solution with water). Tens of thousands of pounds of it was present."
A single Space Shuttle / SLS launch releases far more than that [0]. The solid-fuel boosters are 70% ammonium perchlorate; the primary form the chlorine ends up as is HCl. No one ever gave a shit.
Really, the HCl component is the least concerning part of this disaster. This isn't 1970's-era acid rain, from the coal industry releasing sulfuric acid on a million-ton scale.
The acid is not the real issue. The question is how much dioxin was created, where does it end up, how much are/were people/animals exposed short term and how much in the long run - it accumulates in the food chain.
Does it even generate dioxins? Somebody mentioned in a previous thread that dioxins are only produced when burning PVC (the polymer), not vinyl chloride (the precursor chemical).
In one of these threads I saw a spreadsheet of the derailed cars, and there are a bunch with dry bulk materials. These were the source of the fire that was/is burning [0], and included a few listed as containing "POLYVINYL". I couldn't really figure out what that was, whether it was PVC pellets or a different polymer or what.
There was an article posted last night [1] (now flagged) talking about dioxins. It showed a picture of 2,3,7,8-TCDD [2], with two benzene rings, and talking about its longevity due to those. I've only got a rudimentary knowledge of ochem, but my first thought was wondering where those benzene rings would come from in the burning of vinyl chloride. My conclusion was that the article was conflating different types of dioxins as a single thing - if dioxins are being created by the burning of the vinyl chloride, it's likely the simpler 1,4-Dioxin [3] which according to Wikipedia "is very unstable" so probably will not last long.
This is all guessing on my part, but it still feels more in depth than most of the reporting/discussion has been trying to independently analyze.
[0] Which necessitated doing something about the adjacent tanks full of vinyl chloride, which are seemingly under some pressure (PRV @ 225psi) but mostly rely on keeping a lower temperature over the course of their journey (at least that's what I gathered from reading the spec sheet of a DOT-105 tank car meant for transporting vinyl chloride)
>Anyway it's really weird how there is so little news about this incident.
This has been multiple headlines on the front page of both reddit and HN for like an entire week, how much more do I have to hear about this before people like you acknowledge there is news about this incident?
The day of and after there wasn't front page coverage about this because there was a national event happening, and it turns out local, small scale industrial accidents are pretty common and regular, and most people don't GAF.
The "dying animals but no casualities" angle really gets to me. This is possibly the source of millions of future cancers in America. The damage will persist over decades. They're just downplaying it until something else comes along in the news.
Vinyl chloride decays into 14-CO2 at 99 parts per 100 within 100 days.
There might be more than zero cancers resulting from the spill, but odds are low. Carcinogenic numbers for vinyl chloride are for chronic long-term exposure in plant workers because it doesn't stick around long enough for chronic short-term exposure.
It's no longer vinyl chloride if you set it on fire though. A lot of what is going up in that cloud is gonna turn up to be much more persistent and insidious.
On the contrary, the cloud is mostly CO2 and soot, trace phosgene (breaks down faster than vinyl chloride), and HCL (reacts with everything; is probably fully absorbed into the environment right now).
There is a recommendation to clean the soot and vacuum, but otherwise no major alerts regarding the cloud of burn products that I've seen. They burned it on purpose to turn the vinyl chloride and other chemicals on the train into less harmful byproducts.
Where does the chlorine go if it just turns to CO2?
Wikipedia says you get HCl and Polymers and Carbon Monoxide. And in an open fire in an uncontrolled environment with impure inputs, who the fuck knows what is actually being released?
That might ultimately be fine. But I think this is a much much more complex problem than C2H3CL+O2->CO2
I think the right answer to all of this is (1) to be really up front about what is happening and (2) for independent respected experts (EPA? MIT?) to be taking samples and testing them. Has that happened?
(Edit: Just the fact the cloud is not transparent proves it is more than CO2...)
The chlorine doesn't turn into CO2. HCL reacts with everything and turns into salt and water. But it reacts so rapidly and so readily that it was basically all used up well before the evac order was lifted (possibly, the area will see a little acid rain, but not as bad as in the era of un-scrubbed fossil fuel plants everywhere. And acid rain doesn't mean "you go outside and melt;" it's hard on paint, plastics, open water, and plants because it effs with the pH, but at the concentrations from a few train cars spread over hundreds of square miles, life will handle it. Better than leaving the vinyl chloride concentrated in one place to do damage and then denature into HCL on its own).
Most of the visible chunk of the cloud is soot (solid carbon chains). The EPA has recommended cleaning up the soot where it lands.
... And they are currently doing ongoing air quality testing, yes. The tests continue to show acceptable levels of impurities IIUC.
It does, unfortunately, sound like his foxes got sick, as they were not able to evacuate.
Animals that were evacuated and animals outside the evac zone will probably be fine (though not to the same amount as humans; lower body mass and evac orders aren't structured around pet and livestock welfare, generally).
Biden was backed into that corner - it's not like he is anti-union but of course having the economy tank from a union strike would have been catastrophic for his agenda and the economy (and Democrats staying in power).
All of it. If somebody does something that is judged bad, the circumstances of doing the bad thing is a relevant factor in the justification (which is not binary). So if I tip 10% and somebody judges me and says "that's bad" I might not have any mitigating factors (maximum badness) or I can have some which could make it less bad to the person judging me. Maybe I only had enough money in my wallet for 10% or I needed to save money for something specific that is of higher ethical value or I usually tip that person 20% when I have my corporate card, etc...
In the case of Biden, his badness ("bad" because I'm pro-worker safety/rights) is less than Trump's because he wanted to defend the union but didn't want to make the economy suffer in order to do it and he didn't have enough political power to do more without losing other things vs Trump who went as hard anti-union as he could get away with.
Trump certainly gutted or tried to gut many safety and/or environmental requirements, often with completely absurd justification [1], but I'm not sure this particular case is such.
The safety requirements in question, mandating ECP brakes on certain trains carrying toxic cargo (I think it was trains above a certain length unless they stayed below some specified speed or something like that), were enacted under the FAST Act in 2015.
One of the requirements of that was that before their scheduled effectiveness date that the National Academy of Sciences was to investigate this and determine if the assumptions made when requiring ECP brakes were justified.
My Googling has failed to turn up a copy of the NSA report, but from the small amount that has been quoted in newspaper and magazine articles that did turn up, and from what DOT said when they announced in late 2017 that the ECP mandate would be rescinded, it sounds like the NSA was unable to come to a conclusion on the relative performance of ECP brakes compared to other brakes in emergencies.
Here's what DOT said:
> In accordance with the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (Public Law 114-94), the U.S. Department of Transportation today announced the final updated Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) in regard to Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes on certain trains. After careful review in accordance with the Congressional mandate contained in the FAST Act, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will rescind the ECP mandate.
> This determination was made with congressionally-mandated input from the National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board, U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) and studies by the FRA, which found that the cost-benefit analyses are not sufficient justification for mandating ECP brakes.
> The National Academy of Sciences determined it was unable to make a conclusive statement regarding the emergency performance of ECP brakes relative to other braking systems. In addition, the updated RIA incorporated recommendations from audits conducted by the U.S. General Accountability Office and updated costs and benefits of the ECP brake provision based on current economic conditions. This review demonstrated that the costs of this mandate would exceed three-fold the benefits it would produce.
If the NAS really found that there wasn't enough evidence to say ECP brakes were actually better and the GAO really found that the costs exceeded benefits by 3 to 1 and they were using whatever value is normally used on human life when doing cost/benefit analysis...then this sounds like it might have been destined for repeal regardless of who was President at the time.
I'm curious about why the FAST Act required such a review in the first place. Is that normal? I'd kind of expect such review to come before, not after.
[1] E.g., their weakening of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). The MBTA implements a treaty from the early 1900s between Canada, the US, and Mexico to protect birds that migrate between them. So for example suppose I have some land that migratory birds covered by that treaty rely on as a nesting ground, and want to say build a parking lot on that land. I'd have to do so in a way that does not harm the birds. At least that's what everyone thought for the prior 100 years, including nearly everyone involved in making or ratifying the treaty.
Trump's administration decided we've all misunderstood what it meant all those years. What it actually meant is that you could not intentionally harm the birds. So if I wanted to pave over my land to make a parking lot because I wanted to kill the birds, that would not be allowed. But if I wanted to pave over my land to make a parking lot because it would make money and killing the birds is just an unintentional side effect, that would not be covered by the treaty.
"Cleaning up". Really? When companies say "cleaning up" they are trying to convey the idea that their environmental disaster is a bit like spilling milk in the kitchen. Sure it's unfortunate, but all will be fine after it's "cleaned up".
Just needs a bit of a wipe down and a mop and all good.
Remediation is the word environmental cleanup companies often use. Essentially just removing the top ten or fifteen feet of soil and saying "all clean". Interestingly, all a company needs to do to demonstrate that an area is clean is provide x number of groundwater samples that show clean. What officials ignore is that there might be forty or fifty not-clean samples that are ignored in favour of the, say, five clear samples required. Dirty stuff.
What a weird and inconsequential thing to take offense by. Nothing in the term 'cleaning up' insinuates that it will be fine or that its not a big deal. What you really should be angry over is the spill, not that after-the-fact communication.
OP is agreeing with you. "Cleaning up" is a euphemism we should move beyond. At best, they are "mitigating" the spill and that's probably the word the media should use.
No OP and I are not agreeing. Cause its not a euphemism. They are cleaning up their spill. Will it make everything like before? No. But that doesn't makes the term an euphemism. The other ideas in this thread are more newspeak by a longshot.
"Cleaning Up" when compared to spilled milk like the OP says implies that it will be the way it was before. The term is more positive than the reality so I would personally call it a euphemism.
Thats all on your and OPs own feelings of the term. Something being cleaned up will never be mint again. So you could just a well argue that 'cleaning up' points to something being permanently degraded. In the end loose semantic associations are not universal and OPs critique is a personal emotional response that removes focus from the actual problem here.
I can assure you that word choice is not arbitrary in a shitshow as large as this. Its PR Crisis management 101.
Word choice means everything because it can be the difference in accountability. I guarantee you they are hoping for said effect on the 'audience'/public.
If you want people to be angry about the spill, communications that imply the spill is a temporary thing that is/can be "cleaned up" serve to work against that initial anger.
I was interning at Exxon during the BP oil spill. Back then there was all the same talk about cleanup, but at the end of the day "cleanup" amounted to Exxon quietly recommending a coagulation agent that bound the oil into small globs and sunk it under the surface. If I remember right the oil globs would sink something like 10-15 feet, just enough that you'd see less oil oil on the surface.
I also had family on the Alabama gulf coast at the time. They were finding globs of oil on the beach for a few years after "everything was cleaned up"
For the record, the term "cleaning up" was only used in this article. The official term Norfolk Southern used in their press releases was "monitor and mitigate environmental issues" which does seem more accurate.
> Legislation was passed under President Obama that made it a legal requirement for trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes, but this was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.
> The National Transportation Safety Board, a federal agency responsible for investigating rail accidents, told The Lever that the Ohio train that derailed was not fitted with ECP brakes.
Thats the trade off isnt it. In the pursuit of seeming nuance or complexity, one must inevitably compromise on the incisiveness and forthrightness of one's message.
After having engaged in this activity for some time, I now comprehend how individuals can become rehearsed automatons conditioned by human resources.
I hesitate to elaborate further, as the specifics are likely to attract scrutiny or censure.
it's just surreal how disinterested the US is at doing a good job of some things these days. big weapons systems? sure. tax cuts? sure. doing basic stuff like "regulating and checking up on how people move massive quantities of toxic chemicals"? no.
Buffet is a big investor in railroads and they are cash flow machines. It is true that they use very mature technology but plenty of people are train people and would get into it if there was money. Because the 4 big freight companies in the US are so large though (and have dual duopolies meaning investment isn't rewarded), only safety/environmental regulations will drive big projects and spending.
It's easy to interest people in maintenance if you pay them.
A quick search shows Bank of America turned a net profit in '23 of $6.9B. It would be trivial for them to pay a fleet of engineers $250k/yr+ for Java maintenance.
Ignoring maintenance is always a company choice, not a personal one.
Don't mistake media braintrust opinions for Americans opinions.
Local environmental hazards like this have unanimous bipartisan support for being thorough and transparent, thats how we got legislation like the Clean Air Act. How greased hands and coverup agents feel about it is a separate matter.
Reminds me of the well-known toxic spill in the Sacramento River in 1991. "The chemical plume left a 41-mile wake of destruction, from the spill site to the entry point of the river into Shasta Lake"
So, keep in mind that this story is over two weeks old at this point. Most of the residents are back home and the chemicals are not showing up even in trace tests anymore.
The reason this story is still picking up traction is because Chinese state media made a concerted push starting on Friday to make this a Big Deal, along with the idea that you shouldn't trust our media, agencies, etc.
So, your thesis is that this is showing up in Western media because China is trying to distract from the very crucial super important balloon issue by pointing to something trivial like a large industrial accident with still unknown downstream effects? Did Reuters decide to run a story on it yesterday to placate the Chinese?
> along with the idea that you shouldn't trust our media, agencies, etc.
Imagine that. Although, I'm more accustomed to the idea people only ever think this sort of thing because of those dastardly Russian disinfo campaigns.
No, but when this story ran the first time two weeks ago the downstream effects were very well documented and understood: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/06/1154760911/ohio-train-derailm... Again, this was an intentional burn coordinated by 3 separate agencies.
Reuters article is only a reiteration of material we already know to placate demand on social media.
I understand that locals will continue to have health concerns, but any official reports that this is an "unprecedented environmental disaster" or an intentional cover up all originated from Chinese state media weeks after the fact: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1285450.shtml?id=11
> the downstream effects were very well documented and understood
Incorrect. At that time there was no discussion of pollutants in the Ohio river. As this article mentions, we now know that there is water contamination. This article in fact says not to drink well water, which seems like important new information people in the area should receive.
I think it was pretty clear that the implication of the burn off was going to be some acid rain and other surface pollutants. But seeing as the Ohio river is already one of the most polluted rivers in America it's hard to see this as a major concern for the overall water supply.
Or maybe the story has interest (and hence coverage) because people are scared and want updates on a potential environmental hazard? One closely related to a recent nation-wide labour dispute?
Most people care more about their health than a balloon that - even if it is a nefarious - has no impact on their lives.
This is confusingly worded. The large clouds from the burnoff were called the plume. They should have come up with a different term for the material in the river to avoid ambiguity.
Ok, spill is innacurate, but it's still less confusing than plume. Just by the headline, or someone talking about a plume, you don't know if the article is talking about something that ended a week ago vs something that is ongoing, which is of importance to people in the affected areas.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 203 ms ] threadThe data is that there is nothing to report.
The burn off took place over two weeks ago - I'm not sure why we would be looking for dangerous vapors still.
Maybe put hazardous materials on shorter trains that are in less danger of derailing? But yeah, ok, that wouldn't be as profitable for the railroads...
Not that I disagree with the busting of the strike but it is important to not conflate the two issues. If the above is true this could be more related to Trumps repeal of ECP brakes.
The rail workers have been complaining for years.
I’m not an expert on the intricacies of it, but the way a guy explained to me is to he union cannot or will not protect members for safety work stoppages.
The engineer was aware of the bearing failure more than 20 miles before the accident site, reported it to management and the railroad’s management ordered him to continue moving. No amount of paid sick days will fix that kind of problem.
You could have 100 staff on every train and it wouldn’t prevent an accident like this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_power
When you add in the amount of coordination each train takes to keep it on its own lines safely, more shorter trains would be worse.
Shorter trains would also make coordination easier, because the current trains are too long for bypass tracks so currently none of these trains can pass each other and it tacks a very long time for a multi-mile train to clear the tracks. Allowing trains to actually overtake each other again would help with congestion, but that mostly helps Amtrack so companies don't care.
You don’t know what you’re talking about here. Longer trains are harder to handle and end up with dynamic forces down their length that are less visible to the drivers. Long enough trains can lead to severe in-train dynamics that the drivers aren’t even aware of which in turn can also produce dangerous vertical wheel-rail contact force scenarios that cause derailment risk to skyrocket.
Anyway it's really weird how there is so little news about this incident.
What coverage do you want to see that isn't happening?
Here's an issue that has very grave implications for us all and suddenly they're not interested in asking the right questions of the right people anymore. You don't find that remotely disappointing or curious?
If the 'wrong' people were in office they'd have the sainted mayor talking about how much they need the federal help they're not getting. Why haven't they even bothered asking FEMA for help by the way? Maybe a competent media would ask those questions.
News is original reporting and going to the primary sources of a given story. Commentary sources usually function as secondary or tertiary sources and typically lack the resources to hound government officials, wait outside their office, spend tons of time digging up FOIAs for issues that may or may not pan out, etc.
Figuring out whats happening with a hazardous derailment is not the job of a Tucker or Watters, thats the job of an inquisitive on the ground journalist. Which every news agency employs but very selectively uses.
Who even is "they"? And how do you know FEMA hasn't been asked for help by "them"?
https://twitter.com/fema/status/1625617600104259584?s=20
Why has FEMA not been contacted for assistance? What went into the decision to burn it off? What are the implications of that for local residents? How long are local residents going to live with this? What are we going to do to help the local ecology? What recourse is there for local residents who develop health issues from this? How long is this whole thing supposed to last in the water table? What are they gonna do to help prevent it?
I could go on. Genuinely asking, could you not think of one of those? Aren't you curious about the decisions being made?
>> We are monitoring the incident and remain in close contact with local officials who are handling the response on the ground.
Sounds good to me. Not every happening in the country needs a dedicated slush fund. If officials determine that this does, FEMA has already been in close contact with the people who they need to be in close contact with. You want to be the one who determines this? Run for office or apply for the job.
> What went into the decision to burn it off? What are the implications of that for local residents?
To prevent an explosion, as explained here: https://www.newsweek.com/did-control-burn-toxic-chemicals-ma...
This was very easy to find on Bing. Did you do any research at all or just expect the media to spoon feed you answers?
> How long are local residents going to live with this?
Not something that can be answered by anything but waiting and seeing.
> What are we going to do to help the local ecology? How long is this whole thing supposed to last in the water table?
I don't expect this to be something that is known right now. But I can bet that scientists the country over are investigating.
> What are they gonna do to help prevent it?
Literally the main question in the media. Assigning blame to some party/policy/whatever, in order to adopt a change.
Plenty more of Fox relaying EPA analysis and demanding action from government here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ohio-republican-invites-but...
You may be satisfied by tweets when it comes to government accountability but the point is not that they should have it's an explanation why not.
> Did you do any research at all or just expect the media to spoon feed you answers?
The sourcing in the article you provided is not the govt. It's random people from tiktok and a random expert (who didn't make the claim you're asserting). It appears you're the one not doing the research. Try reading before condescending.
>Not something that can be answered by anything but waiting and seeing.
absolutely false.
The difference here is not one of opinion, it's how easily satisfied you are with the information that is already out there. FEMA tweets vaguely, a tiktoker explains hazmat science, and satisfies your every curiosity. I'm not so easily satiated for one of the largest eco disasters in recent memory at least.
Does not parse grammatically. Try again.
> The sourcing in the article you provided is not the govt
The only people you trust are the government? Odd. Very odd. But since you insist, here's the governor of Ohio saying the same: https://governor.ohio.gov/media/news-and-media/east-palestin...
> absolutely false.
Justify.
> I'm not so easily satiated for one of the largest eco disasters in recent memory at least.
If this were true I'd expect you to be the one to have found all the sources I've been linking to, answering the questions you've been asking. But instead I have. And I'm sick and tired of running around doing your research for you while you move the goalposts.
From now on: if you choose to respond, include a source.
Source what? Lmao you're the one making claims citing crap sources that you're not even reading telling me to do my own research. I'm not making claims, i'm asking questions.
The government would be the ones who were party to the decision. Are you even reading what you're replying to?
>Justify.
Not a new compound, long history of use near and on humans.
>And I'm sick and tired of running around doing your research for you while you move the goalposts.
Search queries and skimming headlines is not research.
Then find the answer yourself.
> claims citing crap sources
Hilarious. I cite experts, you say they don't count unless they're in the government. I cite the government, you call it a "crap source". Quit digging through HN replies and read an article.
> I'm not making claims, i'm asking questions.
> > Here's an issue that has very grave implications for us all and suddenly they're not interested in asking the right questions of the right people anymore.
That's a claim the questions you presented (What went into the decision to burn it off?) weren't asked. And I resoundly proved it false. But you've gone on to move the goalposts to kingdom come.
Do you even have an argument at this point?
I'm not qualified in the field of hazmat exposure. I do know there are experts in it, and it is extensively studied. The answer i'm looking for is bespoke to this particular situation. I don't have live stats on the PPM dilution of Vinyl Chloride or its byproducts in every area it has reached.
I didn't call your gov link a crap source. I was referring to the newsweak article you didn't read that cited a tiktok account as a source.
>That's a claim the questions you presented (What went into the decision to burn it off?) weren't asked. And I resoundly proved it false.
The gov article you linked is from 2/6, today the Governor came out and revealed info that demonstrates that article is a very limited perspective of what went into the decision to burn it off (such as consulting the DoD). There's still a lot more information that needs to be fleshed out pertaining to that question; it hasn't been fully answered. It may never be.
Are you arguing to argue? I'm not sure what your argument is . Our only difference this entire time is what amount of information satisfies us as i've already pointed out. You've said Jesse Watters and Tiktok accounts should be plenty satisfying, i'm saying this requires lots of questions and investigation it hasn't yet gotten.
Is the ecological damage and impact to residents not an ongoing event? Elected officials responses to the event/pressing them for one, informing people of proposed changes to make sure it doesn't happen again
Like... It's just not true?
Right now, on r/news, 7 of the top 25 articles are about Ohio, plus an extra article about an entirely different small industrial accident somewhere else, with only two articles about the balloons, specifically China's bitching about them.
Are they showing the panicked videos all over twitter and tiktok showing residents and their relatives stating MSM news is not telling the real story, that nobody seems to be taking care of them and that some have become quite ill?
This news is nowhere near as secret as people want to believe. I don't know why so many are convinced it is. Maybe some desire to feel part of a small "in the know" group?
These outlets are reporting on it, but given the reality on the ground, it's disingenuous or outright misleading at best. The fact people impacted are complaining of a lack of safety, help and awareness is extremely concerning.
It's not something to trivialise.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/ohio-train-de...
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/us/ohio-train-derailment-inve...
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6320468301112
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6320460608112
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6320455536112
I looked at the first two and neither had a hit for the word "acid". The first seemed to shift the issues onto a chance to rip into the GOP. Dig into the blame part after everyones safe, surely? The second had this:
"There has been no evidence of non-aquatic species suffering from the derailment, she said, and they haven’t had any concerns about that."
This is exactly opposite to many claims made by people actually there.
In all these articles seem to misrepresent/minimise versus reports on the ground, exactly as I stated.
I didn't have time to watch the Fox News videos, maybe they're different?
> When asked about anecdotal reports of people getting headaches and sore throats, and of animals, such as cats and chickens, dying near the train derailment, Ohio Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said that air quality does not appear to be the source.
You can disagree with the officials if you like, that doesn't change the fact that the news reporters asked them about the issues you mentioned, and they gave an official response. This is what the news is for!
Here's ABC talking about the acid: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/toxins-ohio-train-derailment-p...
All in all this is a dumb discussion. The G**P claimed that no one was talking about this, I show that every major media outlet has this as front page news, then people just chime in to say that... the news the media reports doesn't exactly match their preconceived notions based on looking at TikTok? I say that's great! It'd be far, far, far worse if every news outlet and social media were presenting the same narrative.
Wrong. Journalism begins, not ends there.
> I show that every major media outlet has this as front page news
That'd be like saying they had cigarette harms as front page news by stating they're safe and everyone should smoke.
I disagree it's acceptable if news outlets downplay what's happening to real people, and instead claim everything's how stakeholder PR would prefer it be presented. Maybe one day you'll experience what that feels like. But I hope not.
I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
So the answer is probably yes, with it being a lot harder to say what the exact effects are (because how much did it dilute in the atmosphere before going into solution, how quickly did it fall in rain, etc.).
It seems likely enough that there will be some rain that is moderately effected and not much else (because in terms of mixing with the atmosphere, tens of thousands of pounds isn't that much material).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychlorinated_dibenzodioxins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri
A single Space Shuttle / SLS launch releases far more than that [0]. The solid-fuel boosters are 70% ammonium perchlorate; the primary form the chlorine ends up as is HCl. No one ever gave a shit.
Really, the HCl component is the least concerning part of this disaster. This isn't 1970's-era acid rain, from the coal industry releasing sulfuric acid on a million-ton scale.
[0] e.g. Table I, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA289852.pdf ("Stratospheric Ozone Reactive Chemicals Generated by Space Launches Worldwide")
Does it even generate dioxins? Somebody mentioned in a previous thread that dioxins are only produced when burning PVC (the polymer), not vinyl chloride (the precursor chemical).
There was an article posted last night [1] (now flagged) talking about dioxins. It showed a picture of 2,3,7,8-TCDD [2], with two benzene rings, and talking about its longevity due to those. I've only got a rudimentary knowledge of ochem, but my first thought was wondering where those benzene rings would come from in the burning of vinyl chloride. My conclusion was that the article was conflating different types of dioxins as a single thing - if dioxins are being created by the burning of the vinyl chloride, it's likely the simpler 1,4-Dioxin [3] which according to Wikipedia "is very unstable" so probably will not last long.
This is all guessing on my part, but it still feels more in depth than most of the reporting/discussion has been trying to independently analyze.
[0] Which necessitated doing something about the adjacent tanks full of vinyl chloride, which are seemingly under some pressure (PRV @ 225psi) but mostly rely on keeping a lower temperature over the course of their journey (at least that's what I gathered from reading the spec sheet of a DOT-105 tank car meant for transporting vinyl chloride)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34800306
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodiox...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,4-Dioxin
This has been multiple headlines on the front page of both reddit and HN for like an entire week, how much more do I have to hear about this before people like you acknowledge there is news about this incident?
The day of and after there wasn't front page coverage about this because there was a national event happening, and it turns out local, small scale industrial accidents are pretty common and regular, and most people don't GAF.
There is absolutely no way they won't walk away from this the moment they can unless they are legally compelled to stay.
Trump guts safety requirements
Unions object
Biden smashes Union's ability to strike etc
Unions proven right and half of Ohio have their pets die...
There might be more than zero cancers resulting from the spill, but odds are low. Carcinogenic numbers for vinyl chloride are for chronic long-term exposure in plant workers because it doesn't stick around long enough for chronic short-term exposure.
There is a recommendation to clean the soot and vacuum, but otherwise no major alerts regarding the cloud of burn products that I've seen. They burned it on purpose to turn the vinyl chloride and other chemicals on the train into less harmful byproducts.
Where does the chlorine go if it just turns to CO2?
Wikipedia says you get HCl and Polymers and Carbon Monoxide. And in an open fire in an uncontrolled environment with impure inputs, who the fuck knows what is actually being released?
That might ultimately be fine. But I think this is a much much more complex problem than C2H3CL+O2->CO2
I think the right answer to all of this is (1) to be really up front about what is happening and (2) for independent respected experts (EPA? MIT?) to be taking samples and testing them. Has that happened?
(Edit: Just the fact the cloud is not transparent proves it is more than CO2...)
Most of the visible chunk of the cloud is soot (solid carbon chains). The EPA has recommended cleaning up the soot where it lands.
... And they are currently doing ongoing air quality testing, yes. The tests continue to show acceptable levels of impurities IIUC.
This story has enough hysteria already.
Animals that were evacuated and animals outside the evac zone will probably be fine (though not to the same amount as humans; lower body mass and evac orders aren't structured around pet and livestock welfare, generally).
In the case of Biden, his badness ("bad" because I'm pro-worker safety/rights) is less than Trump's because he wanted to defend the union but didn't want to make the economy suffer in order to do it and he didn't have enough political power to do more without losing other things vs Trump who went as hard anti-union as he could get away with.
The safety requirements in question, mandating ECP brakes on certain trains carrying toxic cargo (I think it was trains above a certain length unless they stayed below some specified speed or something like that), were enacted under the FAST Act in 2015.
One of the requirements of that was that before their scheduled effectiveness date that the National Academy of Sciences was to investigate this and determine if the assumptions made when requiring ECP brakes were justified.
My Googling has failed to turn up a copy of the NSA report, but from the small amount that has been quoted in newspaper and magazine articles that did turn up, and from what DOT said when they announced in late 2017 that the ECP mandate would be rescinded, it sounds like the NSA was unable to come to a conclusion on the relative performance of ECP brakes compared to other brakes in emergencies.
Here's what DOT said:
> In accordance with the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (Public Law 114-94), the U.S. Department of Transportation today announced the final updated Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) in regard to Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes on certain trains. After careful review in accordance with the Congressional mandate contained in the FAST Act, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will rescind the ECP mandate.
> This determination was made with congressionally-mandated input from the National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board, U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) and studies by the FRA, which found that the cost-benefit analyses are not sufficient justification for mandating ECP brakes.
> The National Academy of Sciences determined it was unable to make a conclusive statement regarding the emergency performance of ECP brakes relative to other braking systems. In addition, the updated RIA incorporated recommendations from audits conducted by the U.S. General Accountability Office and updated costs and benefits of the ECP brake provision based on current economic conditions. This review demonstrated that the costs of this mandate would exceed three-fold the benefits it would produce.
If the NAS really found that there wasn't enough evidence to say ECP brakes were actually better and the GAO really found that the costs exceeded benefits by 3 to 1 and they were using whatever value is normally used on human life when doing cost/benefit analysis...then this sounds like it might have been destined for repeal regardless of who was President at the time.
I'm curious about why the FAST Act required such a review in the first place. Is that normal? I'd kind of expect such review to come before, not after.
[1] E.g., their weakening of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). The MBTA implements a treaty from the early 1900s between Canada, the US, and Mexico to protect birds that migrate between them. So for example suppose I have some land that migratory birds covered by that treaty rely on as a nesting ground, and want to say build a parking lot on that land. I'd have to do so in a way that does not harm the birds. At least that's what everyone thought for the prior 100 years, including nearly everyone involved in making or ratifying the treaty.
Trump's administration decided we've all misunderstood what it meant all those years. What it actually meant is that you could not intentionally harm the birds. So if I wanted to pave over my land to make a parking lot because I wanted to kill the birds, that would not be allowed. But if I wanted to pave over my land to make a parking lot because it would make money and killing the birds is just an unintentional side effect, that would not be covered by the treaty.
Just needs a bit of a wipe down and a mop and all good.
Word choice means everything because it can be the difference in accountability. I guarantee you they are hoping for said effect on the 'audience'/public.
I also had family on the Alabama gulf coast at the time. They were finding globs of oil on the beach for a few years after "everything was cleaned up"
> The National Transportation Safety Board, a federal agency responsible for investigating rail accidents, told The Lever that the Ohio train that derailed was not fitted with ECP brakes.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-blame-ohio-train-derai...
> Real Edwin exiled by HN moderaters, PC edwin has the same opinions but translated to silicon valley sensibilities using ChatGPT.
Which makes me feel like I can recognize AI comments, but no way to know how many I fail to spot.
Even then original comment got flagged
After having engaged in this activity for some time, I now comprehend how individuals can become rehearsed automatons conditioned by human resources.
I hesitate to elaborate further, as the specifics are likely to attract scrutiny or censure.
How many people graduate in computers and say “now I want to go maintain 25 year old enterprise Java code for banks?” No? Same principle applies.
It’s hard to get people to maintain the boring stuff in a country with so much interesting shiny new stuff going on.
It doesn’t help that these industries are also low margin and are not attractive investment targets.
A quick search shows Bank of America turned a net profit in '23 of $6.9B. It would be trivial for them to pay a fleet of engineers $250k/yr+ for Java maintenance.
Ignoring maintenance is always a company choice, not a personal one.
Local environmental hazards like this have unanimous bipartisan support for being thorough and transparent, thats how we got legislation like the Clean Air Act. How greased hands and coverup agents feel about it is a separate matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir,_California#Californi...
There continue to be derailments at that site, although there is now a barrier to prevent cars from tumbling into the river.
The reason this story is still picking up traction is because Chinese state media made a concerted push starting on Friday to make this a Big Deal, along with the idea that you shouldn't trust our media, agencies, etc.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64633990
> along with the idea that you shouldn't trust our media, agencies, etc.
Imagine that. Although, I'm more accustomed to the idea people only ever think this sort of thing because of those dastardly Russian disinfo campaigns.
Reuters article is only a reiteration of material we already know to placate demand on social media.
I understand that locals will continue to have health concerns, but any official reports that this is an "unprecedented environmental disaster" or an intentional cover up all originated from Chinese state media weeks after the fact: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1285450.shtml?id=11
Incorrect. At that time there was no discussion of pollutants in the Ohio river. As this article mentions, we now know that there is water contamination. This article in fact says not to drink well water, which seems like important new information people in the area should receive.
I think it was pretty clear that the implication of the burn off was going to be some acid rain and other surface pollutants. But seeing as the Ohio river is already one of the most polluted rivers in America it's hard to see this as a major concern for the overall water supply.
Most people care more about their health than a balloon that - even if it is a nefarious - has no impact on their lives.
and someone trying to cover up this toxic spill story with the balloon story,
I'm wondering what I really missed in the "turmoil"...
At a minimum the rail company should have to buy out all the land at the day-before market value. You broke it, you buy it.
Edit: to match parent comment edit
Ok, spill is innacurate, but it's still less confusing than plume. Just by the headline, or someone talking about a plume, you don't know if the article is talking about something that ended a week ago vs something that is ongoing, which is of importance to people in the affected areas.