What are we -- Cleveland?

In 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught on fire in Cleveland, Ohio.

Yesterday, the Kentucky River in Estill County, Kentucky, caught on fire. Or maybe it didn't -- emergency personnel disagree.

At issue is whether chemicals carried by four runaway rail cars got into the river and caught fire. Firefighters say it did. Emergency Management officials say it did not. You would think this would be a pretty simple thing to determine, and firefighters seem to be eminently qualified to make that determination. But emergency management officials, who arrived after the fire department, say no chemicals got in the water. Something's fishy here.

It's sort of like the change in stories about how the accident occurred. Kentucky State Police say the four runaway rail cars slammed into an engine parked on the track by CSX Transportation employees as a means of stopping the runaways. CSX says that never happened because it would be contrary to standard operating procedure. Yeah. Right.

Stupidity causes evacuation

Residents in Estill County, Kentucky, had to be evacuated after four runaway train cars, one of which was carrying butyl acetate, slammed into a locomotive. Among other things, butyl acetate is used as a flavoring agent in foods and fragrances, but it is toxic in high concentrations if swallowed or inhaled.

Ordinarily, this could be labeled a horrible accident, but in this case CSX Transportation officials ordered the locomotive placed on the tracks purposefully to stop the cars, which had been rolling free for 20 miles. Maybe I'm the one off track here, but shouldn't you expect a fiery collision if you place a stopped locomotive in front of runaway train cars full of flammable chemicals? It seems to me the better course would have been to place a locomotive on the tracks traveling at nearly the same speed as the cars, then let the runaways catch up slowly. Or put the locomotive on the rails behind the runaways, then catch them and couple up. Either solution would have to be less catastrophic than the method used by CSX.

As it was handled, the end result was an explosion that destroyed all four cars and the locomotive, and caused a toxic cloud to spread over the community. Twenty homes, a coal tipple and a factory were evacuated. Residents in nearby Irvine were told to shelter in place.

The National Transportation Safety Board was on its way to investigate. Seems that someone has some 'splaining to do.

UPDATE: Now CSX "cannot confirm" that it moved a locomotive into the path of the runaway train cars, The Lexington Herald-Leader is reporting.