The Times-Union’s Scott Waldman is first out of the gate with a detailed report on Thursday night’s meeting organized by Didi Barrett to discuss the TCI inferno, which was attended by a whopping 300+ people at the West Ghent Fire Company. Be sure to read the whole T-U article at: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Anxious-neighbors-of-TCI-confront-government-3794606.php
Several things jump off the page, or rather the screen, right away:
1) A close neighbor of TCI is quoted as saying: “When I asked these officials if they would eat a salad out of my garden, they were quiet.”
2) TCI’s Brian Hemlock canceled at the last minute due to a death in his family, which is understandable. However, the company (which has hired a p.r. firm, and has other employees) surely could have sent someone else so as not to antagonize the audience. The T-U reports that attendees were already “anxious,” “nervous,” “frightened,” and the absence of a TCI rep only heightened the tension and left lingering doubts as to the safety of the community after the blaze, and some left not wanting the company to rebuild.
3) Waldman’s overall assessment is that despite the presence of multiple agencies and officials, the crowd’s concerns were not allayed.
4) The T-U says “hundreds of gallons of toxic hazardous PCBs were at the site before the fire, but [TCI] won't know how much burned until the tangled wreckage can be examined.”
5) Concerned farmers attended, and one customer said he had stopped “buying local vegetables and meat because of the fire” pending better testing.
6) Appreciation of and concern for first responders exposed to the fire was evident, along with calls for better equipment to deal with such emergencies, and better notice of what exactly they are being sent to fight. News of extensive decontamination (decon) of firefighters after the blaze was disclosed for the first time.
7) A Columbia County Sheriff, Thomas Lamphechats reportedly conceded that “emergency officials had ‘dropped the ball’ by not properly notifying residents of possible danger and said the fire might be the worst in Columbia County's history.”
My own sources have expressed some frustration with the meeting’s initial format, which required questions to be written down and vetted by a moderator, but that this cumbersome system broke down, as audience members began simply voicing their questions directly.
WikiCoCo News’ Will Pflaum referred to the evening on Facebook as feeling at first like “Kabuki Theater.”
Several things jump off the page, or rather the screen, right away:
1) A close neighbor of TCI is quoted as saying: “When I asked these officials if they would eat a salad out of my garden, they were quiet.”
2) TCI’s Brian Hemlock canceled at the last minute due to a death in his family, which is understandable. However, the company (which has hired a p.r. firm, and has other employees) surely could have sent someone else so as not to antagonize the audience. The T-U reports that attendees were already “anxious,” “nervous,” “frightened,” and the absence of a TCI rep only heightened the tension and left lingering doubts as to the safety of the community after the blaze, and some left not wanting the company to rebuild.
3) Waldman’s overall assessment is that despite the presence of multiple agencies and officials, the crowd’s concerns were not allayed.
4) The T-U says “hundreds of gallons of toxic hazardous PCBs were at the site before the fire, but [TCI] won't know how much burned until the tangled wreckage can be examined.”
5) Concerned farmers attended, and one customer said he had stopped “buying local vegetables and meat because of the fire” pending better testing.
6) Appreciation of and concern for first responders exposed to the fire was evident, along with calls for better equipment to deal with such emergencies, and better notice of what exactly they are being sent to fight. News of extensive decontamination (decon) of firefighters after the blaze was disclosed for the first time.
7) A Columbia County Sheriff, Thomas Lamphechats reportedly conceded that “emergency officials had ‘dropped the ball’ by not properly notifying residents of possible danger and said the fire might be the worst in Columbia County's history.”
My own sources have expressed some frustration with the meeting’s initial format, which required questions to be written down and vetted by a moderator, but that this cumbersome system broke down, as audience members began simply voicing their questions directly.
WikiCoCo News’ Will Pflaum referred to the evening on Facebook as feeling at first like “Kabuki Theater.”
