How Edward Burkhardt Is Making The Lac Megantic Accident Even Worse [View all]

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If you want to know why there is a perceived crisis of leadership you have only to look at the behavior of Edward Burkhardt, president of Rail World, which owns the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MM&A) railroad. It was a runaway train owned by MM&A that destroyed the little town of Lac Megantic in early July.

Mr. Burkhardt’s first comments on the accident pointed the finger at those he thought might be responsible. As reported in the New York Times, Burkhardt blamed “’tampering’ with the train’s locomotives”, then he shifted focus to the volunteer firefighters who helped extinguish the massive blaze. Later at a press conference in Lac Megantic, where local residents booed him, Burkhardt fingered a railroad engineer whom he asserted had not set the brakes properly.

At his press conference Burkhardt also chided the press for their poor “manners” and as the press conference ended – in response to reporter’s questions – he made light of the fact that his net worth had taken a hit after the accident.

The engineer whom Burkhardt blamed has been suspended without pay. Since MM&A is not investigating the accident, his accusation is pure speculation. The engineer may indeed be culpable for something, but as Wendy Tadros president of Transportation Safety Canada said, such accidents rarely stem from the error of “one individual.” For this reason, her agency is taking a broader view and looking at the “organization.”
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Burkhardt who has spent his life in the railroad industry, has proven one thing – that he is clueless as well as careless, not to mention disrespectful, in handling a crisis of this magnitude. While Burkhardt did express an “abject apology,” such words were drowned out by his other comments as well as the fact that he stayed away from the accident scene for days. Such behavior shows callous disregard for the citizens whose town and livelihoods were destroyed in an oil-tanker fuel firestorm.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2013/07/15/how-edward-burkhardt-is-making-the-lac-megantic-accident-even-worse/