This is a significant part of the tale here because you see every year on Father's Day weekend a large music festival takes place. This festival includes carnival rides and food, beer tents, and big-name country music stars. Well, most years it's country music stars, some years they have done other genres of music.
The original evacuation map that went out included the park on the north shore of the river; the new maps that park, known as Settlers Park, was excluded. Basically, the park is 0.2 miles outside that mandatory evacuation zone -- a zone that was still in place!
As you can this didn't sit well with many people! Also what didn't sit well was how small the evacuation zone was -- people well outside the 1 mile had debris, ash, etc on their properties. Settlers Park was littered with ash and debris too. The EPA and IL EPA were here setting up air monitoring stations. They were saying they couldn't lift the evacuation zone because of air quality. How can 0.2 miles be safe? Where were the people going to park? In the evacuation zone?
With this many, I think "woke-up" some. People started to question how the health department says all of this is safe? What about my air quality? What about the debris in my yard? I just wished they woke up to extend to see that perhaps the last 15 months of covid -- but I digress; I will end that by saying I find it interesting how people are questions all of this and feel like our government is lying about our safety from this chemical fire, but they are the same people that blindly followed covid regulations.
How did that 1- mile get picked? Well, the fire chief set it. It was the minimum distance he felt was needed for people to maintain a physical distance from an active fire with explosions. At first, the fire chief set the mile map as being a mile from the 200-acre property. Which is why that first map looked like someone just drew a quick map with a sharpie.
At some point between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the map changed. Many don't know exactly when but by Wednesday afternoon the new map was being shared and with that came criticism that the new map was drawn so the music festival could start on Thursday night as planned. What really happened because the zone was set by the fire chief and because fire suppression started he decided it could be set by the location of the building, the fire itself -- not the property boundaries.
And that's just it! The zone was made by the Fire Chief to protect people from an active burning fire with explosions. The health department NEVER modified the zone for health reasons. They just came in and said that looks good: let go with that! -- Yes, that's right the health department never modified the boundaries for health, debris, and ash. --
The fire burned freely from Monday 7am to Tuesday 11 am. The fire department was there, they just decided to let it burn. -- mainly because suppression was going to cause runoff into the river. At some point on Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning, a special crew from LA came in dug a trench, put absorbent booms in the river. The fire was not declared out and fully suppressed until Wed June 23 at 2 pm. That's right even with suppression efforts it burned for 10 days! 10 days!
As soon as the fire was considered suppressed the EPA pulled up the air monitoring and decided we didn't need that anymore. Currently, even with the fire out, the biggest concern is crude oil! MILLIONS of gallons of crude oil is here and the tanks are leaking -- Did I mention how this is close to the river?
I think I may do one more post on this with a shortened timeline of events and sources linked. There are still also have other thoughts I may share that are bothering me. Like for example residences are being told to call the clean-up company themselves and set up a clean-up time vs a village lead community clean-up effort. Many feeling like the village only cared about the music festival and how there was a conflict of interest by the village mayor and trustees. You see the festival is put on by a not-for-profit group and the Mayor and many of the trustees are members of that group, with the mayor being the committee that put on the festival.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you click on a link and purchase something. See our full disclosure policy for more details.
With this many, I think "woke-up" some. People started to question how the health department says all of this is safe? What about my air quality? What about the debris in my yard? I just wished they woke up to extend to see that perhaps the last 15 months of covid -- but I digress; I will end that by saying I find it interesting how people are questions all of this and feel like our government is lying about our safety from this chemical fire, but they are the same people that blindly followed covid regulations.
How did that 1- mile get picked? Well, the fire chief set it. It was the minimum distance he felt was needed for people to maintain a physical distance from an active fire with explosions. At first, the fire chief set the mile map as being a mile from the 200-acre property. Which is why that first map looked like someone just drew a quick map with a sharpie.
 |
| first "original" map; source village of Rockton |
At some point between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the map changed. Many don't know exactly when but by Wednesday afternoon the new map was being shared and with that came criticism that the new map was drawn so the music festival could start on Thursday night as planned. What really happened because the zone was set by the fire chief and because fire suppression started he decided it could be set by the location of the building, the fire itself -- not the property boundaries.
 |
| new map; source Village of Rockton |
And that's just it! The zone was made by the Fire Chief to protect people from an active burning fire with explosions. The health department NEVER modified the zone for health reasons. They just came in and said that looks good: let go with that! -- Yes, that's right the health department never modified the boundaries for health, debris, and ash. --
The fire burned freely from Monday 7am to Tuesday 11 am. The fire department was there, they just decided to let it burn. -- mainly because suppression was going to cause runoff into the river. At some point on Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning, a special crew from LA came in dug a trench, put absorbent booms in the river. The fire was not declared out and fully suppressed until Wed June 23 at 2 pm. That's right even with suppression efforts it burned for 10 days! 10 days!
As soon as the fire was considered suppressed the EPA pulled up the air monitoring and decided we didn't need that anymore. Currently, even with the fire out, the biggest concern is crude oil! MILLIONS of gallons of crude oil is here and the tanks are leaking -- Did I mention how this is close to the river?
I think I may do one more post on this with a shortened timeline of events and sources linked. There are still also have other thoughts I may share that are bothering me. Like for example residences are being told to call the clean-up company themselves and set up a clean-up time vs a village lead community clean-up effort. Many feeling like the village only cared about the music festival and how there was a conflict of interest by the village mayor and trustees. You see the festival is put on by a not-for-profit group and the Mayor and many of the trustees are members of that group, with the mayor being the committee that put on the festival.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you click on a link and purchase something. See our full disclosure policy for more details.
No comments:
Post a Comment