King County prepares for oil train explosion with first-ever exercise

When a train carrying nearly 100 cars of crude oil derailed last month beneath Seattle’s Magnolia Bridge, it sent shivers down the spines of many who worry about a potential disaster like the massive explosion that leveled a small Canadian town.

Forty-seven people died when a 74-car train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec on July 6, 2013.

While there was no spill in the Seattle derailment, local officials are making sure they’re as prepared as possible, just in case.

Experts from King County’s Emergency Management Department and a number of agencies gathered Tuesday for the region’s first-ever disaster preparedness exercise focused exclusively on an oil train derailment.

In the so-called “tabletop exercise,” responders were given the scenario of a derailment followed by a massive explosion near Boeing Field. Then they jumped into action, simulating everything they’d do to coordinate firefighting, medical response and potential evacuations.

King County Executive Dow Constantine says he came away from the exercise confident the county is prepared, but still extremely concerned with the potential for catastrophe.

“You know, these tracks pass right by Safeco Field, right by CenturyLink Field, under the biggest buildings underneath downtown,” Constantine says. “These trains carry many, many cars and many, many gallons of oil, so the scale is potentially pretty significant.”

Constantine says while the emergency responders came away confident in their ability to work together, they identified the need to increase communications with the public to quickly get the word out about a potential evacuation.

“Our emergency managers tell us that we are as prepared as any county in the country can be for this kind of disaster. But that is not to say that there wouldn’t be profound negative impact, loss of property, loss of life. economic losses,” he says.

While the emergency responders were focused on dealing with a potential disaster, Constantine says he and other elected officials from across the region continue pushing for increase safety standards for cars carrying the highly-flammable Bakken crude coming from North Dakota, or preventing it from being moved through the region altogether.

“They need to not only move to phase out these old rail cars that are less safe, they really need to prohibit their use,” Constantine says. “The fact is there are too many lives being put at risk for too little benefit locally, or in our state, and we need our Congress and our administration to take action to protect our citizens.”

Constantine recently convened a group of elected leaders from across the Northwest and British Columbia to examine what he calls “the true costs and impacts of coal and oil trains on our communities.”

The federal government last month proposed new rules that would phase out the tens of thousands of older tank cars that carry crude oil and other highly flammable liquids across the country. But formal action isn’t expected any time soon.

“It’s not a good deal for us,” Constantine says. “And that’s why all these local elected leaders are joining together to ask our Congress and our administration to stand up for us to take some action to make sure that we’re protected – our environment, our economy and our lives.”

Officials will conduct a thorough analysis of Tuesday’s exercise and will then determine if further training is needed, including a full emergency simulation in the real world.