Pointing fingers across the tracks: an examination of strategic messages in the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

Abstract

The oil industry transports crude oil via rail due to increasing demand. Though convenient, this can be dangerous, as many railways travel through populated regions, placing individuals in close range at risk of danger and death during a train derailment. In 2013, the deadliest rail disaster to happen in Canada in 140 years occurred when a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic (MMA) train carrying 7.7 ml of petroleum crude oil broke loose in Nantes, Quebec, and traveled towards Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The train derailed and exploded in the city’s center, instantly killed 47 people, destroyed downtown, and forced the evacuation of over 2000 residents. The disaster prompted safety and criminal investigations, and litigation for personal, economic, and ecological reparations. This study uses dialectical tensions of strategic communication decision-making to examine the crisis and post-crisis stages of the event to determine how the tensions of organizational responsibility and emotional connection intersected during the crisis. Further, the impact of the crisis at an industry level and the resulting industry-wide lessons learned are revealed. Results were twofold: The tensions intersected with one another; and in socially stigmatized industries, organizational learning can occur on an industry-wide level. Tensions intersected when insensitive communication and messages disowning responsibility for the event initially occurred, and also later, when sensitive communication and taking ownership of the event were communicated. Learning occurred via observation, and actions were implemented in similar organizations in direct response of the event. In addition, regulations were created in direct response and implemented in both Canada and the United States. The study offers implications, discusses the complexity of transnational crises, and calls for future study of interacting tensions of strategic communication decision-making in order to understand how inherent tensions in a crisis situation prompt certain organizational responses to crises.

Keywords:

• Lac-Mégantic
• crisis communication
• dialectical tensions
• organizational learning
• responsibility
• emotional connection

Acknowledgment

The author would like to acknowledge Dr. Robert S. Littlefield for his assistance in reviewing an earlier version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There are conflicting abbreviations in source material concerning the abbreviation of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. For the purposes of this paper, the abbreviation is referenced as MMA unless otherwise noted in original source material.

2. Canadian Pacific Railway is referred to as CPR and CP. For the purposes of this paper, the organization is abbreviated as CPR unless otherwise noted in original source material.

3. Reversers act as a neutral gear and a car key for locomotives.