Evacuated because of tanker fire

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cruppelt

Will always be FJR rider at heart
Joined
Sep 9, 2009
Messages
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Location
Portland, OR
My family was evacuated from our home yesterday because this happened:

tanker fire

Right at the beginning you can see mounds of gravel for winter time; my drive way is exactly on the opposite side of that on the other side of the road.

The train with all the logs had cars derail which then hit the stationary tanker cars on a secondary track.

To start out with nobody knew what was in the tankers, or once it was clear it was Ethanol, if it was pure or if there was other stuff in there as well.

The fire crew let the first two cars burn out completely, but was able to keep the others from catching. They also fell a lot of the surrounding trees for a fire break. The Ethanol burned for over 4 hours. Although we have most important documents in only two locations, it seems it was not quite enough preparation to get out of the house in a quick manner. We will need to work on that.

I am just so glad this happened now and not in August, I'm pretty sure I would NOT have had a house to go back to otherwise. The whole area is zoned commercial forest, but since it's all private parcels now has not been logged for 40 years. Plenty of fuel for a big area fire...

I left work early and rode my FJR through absolute and utter traffic chaos (because of all the road closures) to meet my wife, kids and dog at a local restaurant, where we had dinner and hung out for a while. It is rather frustrating that although I was able to get through the news feeds that the fire had been put out, I could not get any updates anywhere on when the evacuees were allowed back to their homes. We finally just tried for it at 7pm and got through all the way, and then called all the neighbors we had cell phone numbers for and let them know to come back as well.

Makes you wonder, and I am glad everybody was ok.

 
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I can feel your pain, I was hit with an evacuation order myself this week due to the flooding in Arkansas. Monday night we moved out non-replaceable stuff and all excess rolling stock. I rode both bikes to my dads place in pouring rain. We didn't have a levee breach (yet), but water levels are still well over flood stage.

https://www.kait8.com/story/14558504/jacksonport-under-mandatory-evacuation

 
I sure hope you can get back to your house ASAP without any flood damage! Any news yet on the levee?

 
Woah! A little too close to your home. Glad you were not caught up in it too bad, and could make it back to your house that evening. Still sucks not knowing.

I've never had to evacuate my house, but I have had to at work a few times. Usually because of these:

16870_532110255058_43700039_31492118_1374981_n.jpg


:angry2:

:eek: Frito, that sucks!!! Hopefully the water hasn't gotten to anything.

 
LowandSilent, I am trying really hard to figure out what I see in your picture... Is that somebody disarming a bomb????

 
LowandSilent, I am trying really hard to figure out what I see in your picture... Is that somebody disarming a bomb????
Sorry, couldn't get a larger photo...that, and I was trying to keep my distance. But to answer your question, it's a bomb tech checking out a "suspicious package". We get a few of them a year, between the "white powder" scares.

 
A friend of mine is Fire & Safety at the Univ. of Central Florida. One day, she's doing her rounds on campus, and there's a tanker trailer full of fuel oil sitting next to a building! She follows the lines which go into a lab in the building, and apparently some professor had gotten a grant from an oil company to do petroleum chemistry studies.

He saw nothing wrong with 8,500 gallons of explosive flammables next to classrooms with thousands of students in them. Fortunately the higher-ups were slightly more intelligent and he lost his lab.

 
I sure hope you can get back to your house ASAP without any flood damage! Any news yet on the levee?
The levee held and we're back to near normal. Still have a little moving to do. It'll be a while before the river is below flood stage though.

 
I'm glad your place is ok. All kinds of predictions floating around for the rest of this La Nina year, including even wetter weather for already too wet places like the PNW...

 
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