Disaster sites in Burgundie
Burgundie houses a number of environmental and man-made disaster sites that have been identified by the state as emergency areas of inhospitality. This designation generally coincides with the emergency power of eviction being utilized by the government to evacuate the impacted population and entitles the residents to government housing and other requisite subsidies. There are currently X locations that qualify as emergency areas of inhospitality.
InnisRoisan
1. Aerial view of InnisRoisan
2. The lighthouse of InnisRoisan
3. A house, half buried in sand
4. Truckcycles, the ersatz standard mode of transit
InnishRoisan is a predominantly Gaelic village in Wintergen. The village was founded in the 1830s, following the Burgundian annexation of Wintergen by Burgundian fishing families who named the settlement after the Roisan River in Burdeboch from were many of them emigrated. An abundance of fish and sea life led to prosperity within the farms organized there, and by the 1890s some 1,500 people lived in InnisRoisan with a fishing fleet numbering more than seventy vessels. In 1902 a massive fish processing plant was constructed by the Burgundian North Levantine Trading Company as well as docks for the near by timber camps to ship the goos from northeastern Wintergen to the Ile Burgundie and Ultmar.
In the 1930s trawler fishing technology had advanced and the population had expanded to 4,200. However, unregulated trawling led to the utter annihilation of the benthic life, which decimated the fishery and the seabed. As the trawlers ripped up the seabed and deposited the sands it on the shore, the easterly winds began to bring the sand further and further inland. The hurricane season in 1964 destroyed the fish processing plant and buried more than half of the village under sand dunes. InnisRoisan never fully recovered and is the first example of an emergency area of inhospitality. The government of Burgundie built an apartment complex for the residents outside of the Wintergenian capital of Hivernille. Most residents moved but some either stayed or have returned to eek out a life for themselves. There is no longer any industry and only a handful of service jobs for the 320 residents. Those who remain are supported mainly by unemployment benefits and pensions.
There is a lighthouse at InnisRoisan, built in 1954 as a navigational aid to mariners on the Kilikas Sea. Several shipwrecks line the shore as a testament to the treacherous waters. No roads or railroads connect the area with the rest of Wintergen. Transportation to the outside world is by ship or air. The civilian airport is a dirt runway 650 meters in length. Local travel is by "truckcycles" (motorcycles with truck wheels).
Sedane Nuclear Plant Exclusion Zone
Situated deep in the Roln province in Ultmar, the Sedane Nuclear powerplant was completed in 1969. This was the third nuclear power reactor in Burgundie and the first intended for commercial use. Due to the national excitement and massive potential for profit the bidding process of fierce and rife with controversy. It is speculated that 14 people died as a result of the bidding war and a number of construction companies were either closed for bankruptcy or charged with fraud by the Revenue Guard. The winning bid, by ReFitte Advanced Systems, was to create a massive 4 reactor plant with the potential to power all of Roln and the southern quarter of Marves. However, a surveyor was bribed to change the location of the proposed site and it was built on a fault-line. This was not detected by others involved with the construction and the surveyor dead of an apparent accident caused by drunken driving. Some accounts of the number who died as a result of the plant bidding process include his death as the 15th associated with the war.
Construction started in 1967 and was very much a national spectacle. This was during The Great Tumult so the positive distraction was much needed. In 1974 a minor earthquake became a major catastrophe as the shifting ground caused the shielding around the reactor to crack and a moderate leak developed. The reactor was shut down and a 150 square kilometer area had to be cordoned off to contain the release of radioactive material. 340,000 people were forcibly evicted within the first week of the disaster but not before many of them had already been exposed to high doses of radiation. It is estimated that 1,280 people died of exposure within the first 10 years of the disaster and innumerable others died of or are currently battling various radiologic diseases like cancer as a result of their exposure. The XII Engineer Battalion of the II Infantry Legion and the L Combat Engineer Regiment of the IV Field Sustainment Brigade were both mobilized to help the immediate response. Both units sustained losses of over 30% on the first three days of the containment effort. Additional units were activated to facilitate the response and evacuation, but none suffered as badly as the first two. The responders from the XII Engineer Battalion and the L Combat Engineer Regiment were awarded the Hero of the Burgundian Empire and the units were given the Ribbon of Selfless Service.
The 150 square kilometer exclusion zone was home to 24 municipalities in two raion. The largest community, the adjacent town built for the workers and dependents of the plant, Sedane Centrale, home to 85,530 people at the time of the accident remains as a ghost town and has been a favorite for urban explorers since the 1990s. The area has been under the control of the Emergency Management Agency of Burgundie since the disaster. The security for the zone is delegated to the Nuclear Ordnance Security Group of the National Gendarmerie of Burgundie, colloquially named theNuclear Gaurd, it is a specially outfitted unit that operates entirely in NBC gear and, of late has made good use of drone technology. They are often the proving ground for new Burgundian military drone technology and have provided the service to other international robotics concerns as well. The team has done extensive research on improving the Burgundian response to radiologic incidents and the decontamination processes. In the last 10 years, they have increased their efforts in the areas of dry decontamination and the resulting lessons have been adopted by all levels of government, first responders, and first receivers across Burgundie.
In 2004, O’Shea Container Shipping (later transferred to O'Shea Operation Management Services) purchased 50 square kilometers of the land and is using it to develop Radioactive Removal Services (RRS) technologies.
The accident slowed the pace of the nuclear power sector in Burgundie for about 10 years. However, during the "BurgunFri" environmental movement in the 1990s it experienced a revival and 5 nuclear power plants have been constructed in Burgundie since 1987.
Long Beach Shoals Testing Site
Long Beach Shoals is an oceanographical feature 60km (37mi) off of northwestern Nauta Normand. From the 1880s it was used as a military proving range as it was the closest Burgundian territory outside of the Kilikas Storm Belt. It was the first real demonstration that the central Burgundian government was considering expanding its influence in the world. Previously, the focus was on building ships that could withstand the Kilikas Storm Belt and yet outrun Kiraviaian naval vessels. Focusing on other environments was a massive shift in the policies of the Navy of Burgundie and the government. This Fair Weather Navy was also the first time that iron and steel, powered vessels were tested in Burgundie, bucking the prevailing opinion of Tall ships today, tall ships tomorrow, tall ships forever. Long Beach Shoals were chosen as a remote area that had enough timber to construct facilities on shore for a military port, enough unclaimed land to allow for the testing of new naval weapons, and the remoteness that it would not disrupt shipping lanes. Over the next 150 years, the Navy utilized a variety of munitions types and dumped large amounts of pollutants including gasoline, toxic and industrial wastes, and sunk a number of ships as part of targeting practice.
In the 1990s the site was deemed a hazard after locals began reporting chronic issues related to the inability to produce offspring, some of the highest cancer rates in Burgundie, and the uncontrollable loss of hair. The Royal Department of Public Health and Societal Improvement condemned the site in 1996 and the military vacated the area in 1999. The area is known for being a 1500 acre preserve for castaways, disestablishmentarians, and anarchists. In 2008, the Free State of the Lands Beyond the Lords was declared and a minor police action was undertaken by the Rural Directory of Police in Nauta Normand, the Metropolitan Police of Soix, and the National Police of Burgundie. The action soon was bogged down and the National Gendarmerie of Burgundie were called and in August 2010 the Bloodbath of the Free State commenced. Supported by 1,239 heavily armed police officers, 218 gendarmes moved into the woods and routed the anarchists. It is anticipated that members of the Rural Directory of Police, overly excited to be as armed as they were and undertrained in the use of their equipment, opened fire, but soon the woods were filled with the sounds of gunfire and the sight of tracers. 218 anarchists were killed or injured and 53 police and gendarmes as well. Over 50% of the police injuries were attributed to friendly fire.
Meandrive
The Meandrive is a river in the heart of Roln, and is the primary fluvial feature in Tariege . The Meandrive was an extremely polluted river that served not only as an open sewer for the city until the early 20th century but also as an industrial waste dump for the late 19th and much of the 20th century. Records state that the industrialized portions of the river in and below Tariege caught fire 13 times in the 20th century, most notably in 1903, 1938, 1972. The 1972 was so violent that it spread up the banks and burned two neighborhoods and a portion of an adjacent town. The Great Meandrive Fire of 1972 was one of the major events that lead to the creation both the Royal Environmental Affairs Bureau 1976 and forming the Department of Total Defense, out of the Department of Civil Defense 1979.
On the morning of March 2rd, 1972 an oil slick in downtown Tareige caught fire. It was not considered an emergency as the slick was in the middle of the river and the water was moving. Around 11am the slick contacted additional combustible material in the river and the fire grew. A fire truck was station at the bridge below the slick and dropped a pumping line into the river and created a curtain of river water from the bridge. As the slick approached the bridge the wind shifted pushing the flaming debris towards the pumping line. Soon the fire engine’s pumping line started sucking up water and the burning material turning the truck into a flamethrower. The crew abandoned the truck and it spewed a wave of flames for 4 minutes. The bridge was engulfed in flames and adjacent slicks also caught fire. The pumping apparatus shot a constant jet of flames from the burning fire engine 12 meters into the air. At this point the alarm was sounded to evacuate the areas around the bridge and the quays for three blocks down stream.
Thick black smoke billowed up as the tires burned obscuring the attempts of arriving engines to fight the fire efficiently. After 30 minutes the fire on the bridge seemed to be contained and a boom had been deployed to keep the burning slick from moving further downstream. As the wood of the bridge burned it weakened under the weight of the engine. The back half of the engine fell partially through the deck of the bridge. This exposed fresh wood to the fire and new flames erupted. The fire officer called for a dam release to try to drown the bridge fire. 15 minutes later a small wave of water rushed down the river and hit the bridge. It carried even more combustible material and overran the boom. The lower portions of the bridge fire were adequately doused but the dam release had concentrated a number of slicks together and pushed them into the fire. The resulting conflagration threw toxic fumes billowing into the sky and spanned bank to bank. A chemical plant on the southern bank caught fire and added even more toxic fumes. A general evacuation was called, and 14 towns and surrounding cities were activated through mutual aid. The chemical plant had a series of explosions resulting in the death of 14 employees and 6 fire fighters. Fire Seneschal was activated to bring in 3 water bombers and the Gendarmes to aid with the evacuation. 6 blocks on both sides of the river and a 6-block radius were emptied in an hour in preparation for the water bombers. At 2pm the first run of the water bombers came. The first pass was over the chemical plant. The weight of the water crushed part of the structure and a row of houses. The second pass missed the plant altogether and splashed down in the river and to its far bank damaging three riverside buildings. The third pass was released from a higher altitude to reduce the damage, but the chemical fire was burning so hot that water was observed evaporating before it contacted the fire.
It was decided to demolish a fire line of houses around the chemical plant to save the neighborhood. The Gendarmes armored vehicles were used to collapse the houses but one of the them got stuck and another wind shift saw it get abandoned as fire swept past. The neighborhood was lost and it took 6 fire brigades to contain it and save neighboring areas. The fire in the river had moved past the downtown area and additional attempts to boom the river were halted by the lack of capable personnel and equipment. Fire boats were deployed ahead of the fire and after it to douse the buildings along the river. At around 3:30pm the fire had almost reached the city limit when the wind died, and it stagnated. Unbeknownst to the fire fighters both on the quays and on the boats, there were two pressurized propane tanks that had been dumped into the river, one under where the burning slick was and another about 3 meters away. The fire operations took the stagnation as an opportunity to get in close and try to douse the slick completely. The fire boats were within 5 meters on either end and the land-based apparatus were on the southern bank immediately adjacent. The slick looked as if it was almost totally out and the boats closed in to almost on top of the slick. The water from the apparatus pushed the heat down into the water and the steam generated warmed the pressurized tank directly under the fire to the point of bursting. It exploded at 3:42pm immediately killing the deck gunner on the closest fire boat and severely injuring and permanently deafening the deck gunner on the other. The immense pressure change denoted the second tank and it shot up like a rocket damaging one of the fire boats. This slowed the projectile and allowed the expanding propane gas to ignite on the remaining fire on the slick. This fire jet ignited a nearby shop vestibule. It was left unmitigated as the firefighters on the quays fought to get the firefighters off the boats. The helmsmen of the boats were saved with minor injuries and the two deck gunners where dragged out of the water and sent to the hospital. The shop building caught fire and the fire spread rapidly. The vacuum of air from the propane explosion and the resulting neighborhood fire eventually deprived the river slick of oxygen and permanently put out the fire. The neighborhood burned to the ground and a park between the city limits and an adjoining town’s residential section also burned until running out of fuel.
In total 8 firefighters, 24 citizens, and 2 Gendarmes died during the fire. Because of the toxic fumes 83 additionally died and 1,423 people were hospitalized with permanent respiratory issues as a result. The damage was estimated at $38 million with a total price tag of $74 million. The fire changed firefighting, mutual aid, emergency management, and environmental protections forever in Burgundie.