USEPA and Ohio EPA would have authorized this response. Norfolk Southern’s hazmat team and or their hired environmental consultants would have probably been the ones to start the combustion of the VC, possibly the Fire Department. In all likelihood.
One thing worth mentioning is the railroad’s near shutdown this year due to strike. They are running with much fewer employees than before. Which could be caulked up to corporate greed. RRs are notorious for cutting costs at every turn, jeopardizing safety and environmental contamination, etc. in an effort to maximize profits. Think early 1900s coal mine operations.
The PHMSA is who issues rules covering hazmat transportation. Will be interesting to see if/which of these rules were followed and which weren’t.
Also something nobody is talking about is all of the farmland is the area that is at risk from the HCl that will be raining down from the sky. There is also a coverup of some sort going on. Reporters have been arrested and kicked off the site for asking tough questions at meetings and trying to snap pictures of things like the fish kill off in the river. National Guard onsite and hauling folks off for trying to get pics and info onsite and surrounding areas.
Hope your FIL and others involved are okay. Given the cloud that has formed over the area, it would
Not surprise me if they could smell something. If it were me, I’d leave until I could get some real answers that I believed.
I never doubt people that say they smell something unusual outside. One time some idiot got mad at the terminals close to Athens on 129 and let a huge amount of waste gasoline loose. The river that runs parallel to Mitchell Bridge Rd and goes into the Middle Oconee was flooded with this gas. When I pulled up, the smell was so strong, I would get nowhere near running cars or any potential source of ignition. The smell of that river was so strong , even across the bypass, it smelled like a gas pump, no exaggeration. I started smelling hints of it at least a mile up the road and the quantities then were nothing like is going on in Ohio.