According to federal authorities’ own predictions, potentially deadly oil train accidents are likely to be commonplace in the United States over the next two decades, with derailments expected to occur an average of 10 times a year, costing billions of dollars in damage, and putting a large number of lives at risk.
The grim projection was revealed exclusively by the Associated Press, which cites a previously unreported analysis by the Department of Transportation from last July.
The disclosure comes in the wake of two explosive crude-by-rail disasters in the U.S. and Canada this month alone, including wrecks and explosions in West Virginia and Ontario.
“Based on past accident trends, anticipated shipping volumes and known ethanol and crude rail routes, the analysis predicted about 15 derailments in 2015, declining to about five a year by 2034,” AP journalists Matthew Brown and Josh Funk write.
Any one of the 207 expected derailments, if it occurs near a population center, could kill 200 people and cause $6 billion in damage, according to the reporting. DOT researchers say that they expect crashes to cause at least $4.5 billion in damages over the next twenty years.
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