Yesterday Allen and I were visiting about their upcoming trip to Louisana for a family wedding. He mentioned that some of his family lives off of Airline Highway outside of New Orleans. This triggered a old work memory and it has been on my mind since we visited.
On Memorial Day week in 1996 there was a incident involving Marathon's Pipeline system from its Garyville, LA refinery. Someone had struck a gasoline pipeline while digging with a track hoe near Airline Highway which caused a massive gasoline spill into the area. Being a Memorial Day week there were several issues/activities going in this area.
Probably the most noteworthy was that the Olympic torch run was scheduled to pass through the area on its way to Atlanta Georgia for the upcoming summer Olympics. The torch run started in Los Angeles and it wound its way across and around the country until it reached Atlanta, Georgia in July. So Marathon had the unfortunate situation of having to temporarily rerouting the torch. Additionally the area where this gasoline had been released was a area with a lot of cabins and camps. Of course being a holiday weekend that meant a lot of people were going to be wanting to use these facilities. There was a wedding that was supposed to occur in the impacted area so that had to be relocated. I think those folks had a much nicer wedding than they would have, because no expense was spared.
Additionally a major Kansas Southern railroad line also ran through this area.
So needless to say it was a public relations nightmare as well as a environmental nightmare because this spill had spread through the bayou/swamps surrounding the pipeline. So there was a lot of animals that were impacted and killed. Namely alligators and lots of different types of fish and birds. FYI gasoline turns dead alligators and fish into a mushy mess. We had large refrigerator semi trailers filled with lots of carcasses until they could be accounted for. Of course there were lots of animals that were probably never accounted for and decomposed in the bayous/swamps.
At that time Jennifer and I were working in Lafayette, LA which is just a couple hours west of Garyville, LA. Well when the incident happened the company activated its Corporate Emergency Response team to respond to the spill. People were being mobilized from all over the country to work on getting this incident secured and cleaned up.
At that time Jennifer and I were not officially part of that team. However, this was a "all hands on deck" moment. So our boss got a call requesting that Jennifer be sent to assist with Industrial Hygiene monitoring and sampling. So she drove over and started working. I was offshore but came back in that day and I was sent the next day to do the same. So Jennifer and I worked opposite of each other. Jennifer worked days and I worked nights. So we literally would see each other for about a hour as we passed off duties and then one would go to work and the other off to the hotel to get some sleep.
It was a very long week, with lots of crazy stuff that occurred. One of the craziest/funniest ones was a incident involving the railroad operations. Of course they wanted to get this railway line back in service as quickly as possible. However there was a lot of politics being played and a power struggle between government agencies. Some of these agencies really wanted to flex their muscle. In particular the Louisana State Police wanted everyone to understand they were calling the shots.
Anyway there were probably lots of meetings between the shot callers and it was decided they were going to send a train engine through as a test to make sure it was going to be safe and ok. So the individuals that were going to run the train came into the on-site command center to discuss how this was going to occur.
The engineer for locomotive was one of the largest human beings that I have seen personally. This guys arms were as big as my thighs. So the plan was laid out and these railroad guys left to get the locomotive to start to slowly pass through the impacted areas.
Well one Barney Fife from the Louisana State Police must have not been in the communication chain. So this locomotive is slowly coming down the tracks. Old Barney see this and is having no part of this. He pulls his cruiser across the tracks and is standing there to shut this train down. Now you just don't stop a locomotive on a dime. So the engineer start applying brakes and the train is starting to stop but it is clear to everyone that it is not going to stop before it hits old Barney's cruiser. Well fortunately he also realized that and jumped in it and got it off the tracks just in time. Anyway, the train stops and this mountain of a man climbs down off the locomotive and old Barney starts chewing on his ass.
I had to admire the engineer he kept his cool. He could have snapped old Barney's neck with his pinky finger. Of course there was also a little racial tension in all of this. The engineer was a black man and of course Barney was a white guy. However cooler heads prevailed and word got down to Barney that the movement of this train had been authorized by the higher up's and the train went thru and shortly after rail operations recommensed.
Anyway that was a crazy long week and one of the worst Memorial Day weekends that we had.
Well enough therapy for today I better do something productive, I see some grout calling my name, but may go play some Pickleball first and get the grout later today.
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