The problem faced in East Palestine by first responders was that the mitigation infrastructure just wasn't immediately available in a town of 4700 people. The vinyl chloride was boiling off, and during the entire time that would have been necessary to get those resources to the site vinyl chloride would have been boiling into the atmosphere, and spreading like propane across the ground in a horrifically deadly pool of gas, because it's denser than air.

If they had some way of chilling the crumpled wreckage, they could have stopped it from boiling off. They didn't have that equipment. If they'd had massive piles of green wood chips they might have tried to absorb the chemical. They didn't have that resource. At the time of the event, the first responders had the equipment on hand and every second they delayed let more of the chemical boil into the atmosphere. They elected to burn the chemical, which would theoretically produce H2O, CO, CO2, and Hydrogen Chloride, which combines with water to create HCL, or Hydrochloric acid. Clearly acid is bad, but it's a lot less bad than vinyl chloride.

It's impossible to fault the decision of the first responders because they just didn't have any resources at hand to deploy. They were faced with the classic meme regarding a train coming to a switch that either choice leads to people tied down on the tracks. Nothing they did could prevent the chemical spill, so they chose to burn it and release the products of combustion instead of the vinyl chloride.

Regarding Keith Olbermann's propaganda, he simply doesn't look at the data regarding the benefits people get from having the means to defend themselves from criminals, such as governments, and how disarming people renders them helpless against criminals.

Law abiding citizens in jurisdictions that ban guns don't have guns because they obey the law, while criminals don't obey laws and have guns regardless of them being banned. This leaves cities where guns are banned populated by armed criminals and disarmed victims, which creates massive murder rates because disarmed people are easy to kill.

Thanks!