As a young reporter, I once spent 24 hours in a van with my friend and boss Phil Latham. We were parked at a motel at the busiest crossroads in Lufkin, Texas, a couple hours north of Houston.
Phil had wondered what kinds of things came through town on the tanker trucks that filled up at the refineries and chemical plants on the coast. Many of the trucks headed toward Chicago and the Midwest, meaning they came our way.
How many trucks came through town each day? What were they carrying?
We consulted state agencies. We asked the fire department, which was in charge whenever there was an accident involving a spill. When we asked how many tankers came through town, no one knew.
So Phil and I spent 24 hours in a van, armed with binoculars, reading the tags on the tankers that told emergency crews what they were dealing with. Each tag had a 4-digit code. We tried to stay awake so we could get two sets of eyes on each tag.
Hundreds of tankers came through. As you’d expect, most were carrying gasoline. But a surprising number were carrying industrial chemicals. Some were so specialized and so toxic the fire department was not equipped to deal with them. In a couple of cases, emergency officials hadn’t heard of the chemicals. These extremely hazardous chemicals were passing neighborhoods and schools.
I suppose you could call it a stakeout, although the word conjures up a sense of excitement that was absent. Staying alert for 24 hours involves a lot of coffee, sandwiches and cookies. It warps your sense of time. Toward the end, you’re looking at your watch every 3 minutes, wondering whether a half hour had passed.
It seems to me that our sense of space also can become warped. We imagine that dangers and threats — or just the things that should concern us — are somewhere else, somewhere distant.
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