Archive for August, 2008

Events in Georgia notwithstanding, in supposedly quieter parts of the world, people were awakened by a nasty explosion at 4 am. People like me and Lucy, who were shaken awake by a BOOM and our building shaking, followed a few minutes later by another boom and shake shake shake.

In our grogginess we tried to find answers, couldn’t, and fell asleep into some scary dreams. I was in Boston on 9/11, and it turns out one can have a little PTSD even when the events were not directly witnessed. I was absolutely convinced that something just as awful had happened.

Luckily, that was not the case. Instead, I woke to the news that a propane facility not 10 miles from our apartment exploded, blasting out the windows of houses just down the street, causing the evacuation of thousands, mild injuries to many, the total destruction of at least 5 homes, the closure of the busiest section of North America’s busiest highway, and eventually the death of at least one fire fighter.

RED FLAG!! There was a propane facility in a residential area??? The acting deputy mayor immediately tried to claim that the housing had encroached on the facility, and Mayor David Miller claimed that the facility was placed there due to zoning that goes back at least a decade. But nearly every single resident interviewed by the press had been in the area for at least a decade and said that they had been concerned when Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases moved into their neighbourhood without warning nearly five years ago.

Today, the Globe and Mail is reporting that US regulation for the placement of such facilities requires that they be at least 2 KM from any residence. In Ontario, no such rules are in place. As Richard Hawrelak, an engineer at University of Western Ontario told the Globe, “In Canada, the MIACC system was a very poor cousin [of the American system]. All we came up with were loosey-goosey guidelines.”

North York, the neighbourhood where the explosion occurred is a traditionally Italian neighbourhood. Extended families often live within minutes, if not houses of each other. Residents who had to evacuate included people who had been in the area for 50 years. This doesn’t sound like a case of the people putting themselves in the path of a dangerous facility to me.

So far no serious injuries are reported, although people were driving themselves to the hospital with respiratory complaints and several others had to be treated for cuts due to blown out windows. Propane is an asphyxiant, and multiple people have described direct contact with one of the fire balls.

Toronto and Ontario better start rethinking their responsibility to place facilities like this safely away from homes and schools. In the meantime, thank god Lucy and I decided to live closer to downtown.

Our thoughts go out to the family and friends of District Chief Robert Leek, a 25 year veteran who died during the effort to put out the blaze. Fire fighters are the ones who run into the burning building so that we can all get out. I’ve got a lot of respect for that kind of brave love for one’s fellow human beings.

You can see the events in the videos below. Photograph was courtesy of Andrew Erlich, who submitted it to the Globe and Mail.