James “Spanky” Vidrine from Union Tank Car in Ville Platte addressed the Ville Platte Rotary Club during its last meeting in August.
Vidrine stated that the Ville Platte facility is one of 11 in the country that repairs rail cars. “All cars in North America have to be serviced at least once every 10 years,” he said. “That is told to us by the FRA, which is the Federal Railroad Administration.”
“We take these cars in and clean them and refurbish them,” he continued. “The wheels on the rail cars have to be scaled and tested a minimum of once every 10 years. The interiors of the rail cars have to be inspected for corrosion.”
Union Tank in Ville Platte employs about 140 people, and, of that number, according to Vidrine, 75 to 80 percent come from the city.
Vidrine said that the staff is “very limited as to what we can clean.” He added, “It’s stuff that we can generate waste water for and dispose of locally. It’s not anything hazardous in the long term, but we do clean a lot of acids and bases.”
He continued, “We do get cars that have been loaded and unloaded elsewhere with some pretty dangerous materials like ethylene oxide. One of those loaded rail cars could wipe out a town the size of Ville Platte.”
Vidrine then explained that 500 pages of paperwork go into the work of an average car. “It’s all because of government regulations,” he stated. “Most towns were started around a railroad track, so that’s why regulations were raised. They haul some very dangerous materials in those rail cars and in large quantities. The average size of a rail car is about 20 thousand gallons. It’s not too bad if it’s wine.”
A week later during the club’s first meeting of September, the Ville Platte Rotarians heard from the Region IV Emergency Response Coordinator of Louisiana Office of Public Health Karen Buroker about emergency preparedness in the wake of Tropical Storm Gordon.
“A lot of times, we think we’ve been there and done that and think we know hurricanes,” she said, “but, when we really start thinking of our supplies and our plans, we may not be as ready as we think.”
Buroker suggested having an emergency kit and “pulling it out once in a while to look at your supplies because the water gets old and the batteries expire.”
She also spoke about the challenge during an emergency created by cell phones.
“Think about all of the things that we have on our phones that we might not have a back up for like phone numbers,” Buroker said.
I know my husband’s cell phone number, but I don’t know my in-laws’ cell phone numbers. All of those emergency phone numbers need to be written down as a backup.”
She continued, “Another good plan is to have everyone in the family know a contact number for a person who might live out of state if you and your family would get separated. A lot of times, we can’t get through on local lines, but sometimes we can get through to other states.”
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TONY MARKS Associate Editor