BNSF Gives Update After Hurricane Hilary Last Month
Written by Jennifer McLawhorn, Managing Editor
Courtesy of BNSF
LOS ANGELES – BNSF gave a service update on LinkedIn after Hurricane Hilary hit Southern California last month.
BNSF gave a service update on LinkedIn after Hurricane Hilary hit Southern California last month. The Class I thanked its employees for how they “prepared before the storm and their actions during and after.”
As the storm approached, BNSF teams “pre-positioned track equipment and supplies, including generators, fuel tanks and ballast, to aid in service response and recovery. Their efforts helped to protect our infrastructure and operations and within 24 hours of the storm, BNSF intermodal facilities in the greater Los Angeles area were fully operational and there were no impacts at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, a hub of international commerce.”
BNSF stated that there were service interruptions, but its Region Operations Center team managed to stage “impacted trains to accommodate those that could continue to safely move. During the height of the storm, there were 38 weather events in the southern portions of our California Division, ranging from high-wind warnings of 65 mph winds to flash flood warnings.” BNSF was able to operate more than 130 trains due to “strong communication and expert railroading.”
BNSF lines remained in service during the storm, and because of preparations, it was able to “lend support to Union Pacific to get a flooded portion of their Mojave Subdivision back in service within just a few days.”
General Manager, California Division, Rich Dennison stated his thanks to the “teams throughout the California Division for their tremendous planning efforts in advance of Hilary and for safely maintaining operations both during the storm and in the days that followed . . . I continue to be impressed how we always rise to the occasion in challenging situations to keep our customers’ freight moving.”
