Posted on 01/06/2005 8:37:59 AM PST by Peach
AP Photo/Aiken Standard, Michael Gibbons Hazardous material workers head to the scene where two Norfolk Southern freight trains collided early Thursday, Jan. 6, 2005, in Grantville, spilling a hazardous chemical and sending dozens of people to a decontamination site in Aiken. More photos...
One dead, 70 treated after chemical spill that followed train crash
AMY GEIER EDGAR
Associated Press
GRANITEVILLE, S.C. - Aiken County officials have confirmed one person has died and at least 70 were injured when two trains crashed here Thursday morning and spilled a hazardous chemical.
Sheriff's Lt. Michael Frank did not give details of who was killed or how they died. He said 70 people have been treated at Aiken Regional Medical Center. All but about 20 were released; some were admitted to intensive care units, Frank said.
A Norfolk Southern freight train with two locomotives and 42 rail cars struck a locomotive with two rail cars parked at a siding at Avondale Mills, said railroad spokesman Robin Chapman.
Chapman said three cars on the moving train were carrying chlorine and there was a release of the gas. He did not know where the train was going.
Two crew members on that train were taken to a hospital after inhaling chlorine. No one was aboard the parked train, Chapman said.
One of the loose cars struck a tree, knocked it onto a car and trapped a woman inside for about two hours, Frank said. The woman was removed and taken to a hospital for treatment. Her condition was unavailable.
National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Lauren Peduzzi said the agency will investigate the accident. A team of investigators was set to leave Washington around noon.
There were at least three hazardous chemicals on the train, Berry said, but officials were most concerned about the chlorine gas, which affects respiratory and central nervous systems. It can damage the throat, nose, eyes and can cause death. Berry said the gas has a strong odor and is heavier than air so it stays close to the ground.
Frank said emergency workers had found Graniteville residents walking outdoors and warned them to stay inside. Temperatures in the area were well above average with overnight lows in the 50s and highs in the mid-70s Thursday, so residents were told to close their doors and windows and shut off air-conditioning or heating systems.
Light winds Thursday afternoon could spread the chlorine to areas beyond the crash site but also could help lessen the danger by dissipating the gas, Berry said.
The National Weather Service recommended that people within a two-mile radius of the crash site stay indoors and keep their air-ventilation systems off.
Douglas Brown, 44, lives two streets away from the railroad tracks. He said he heard a boom that shook his house and heard the sound of metal dragging about 2:30 a.m.
Brown got in his car and drove to the site of the crash. He said he saw a fog over the ground.
"You could smell it real good, it made your tongue numb, your throat get sore and your eyes get dry," Brown said.
Deputies sent him to the University of South Carolina-Aiken campus to be decontaminated. Brown said his wife and two children were at home but were not asked to leave.
Officials did not know how many people had been decontaminated at USC-Aiken and Midland Valley High School.
At the university, two tents were set up. In one tent, people exposed to the chemicals removed their clothes and were washed down. They then moved to a second tent where they were given medical attention. Some were sent to the hospital.
Put me on ypur ping list, Georgia is close enough.
My company just left......WIll continue to keep you and yours in prayers.....Take care.
Thank you so much, hoosiermama. It has helped me to stay calm knowing that my husband is calm and that my freeper friends have said prayers for us and most importantly, for those in the affected area.
Good night.
The folks here are the nicest people we've ever met anywhere.
Mac: If you are watching, please check in. Channel 7 just showed the curfew area and it showed down Route 118 to Pine Log Road. That's us! Did you see this?
I heard the first news conferance with NS, when he said they were sorry for what had happened, you could tell he really meant it. They were quick in setting up disaster aid for people. More than likely they are not the people who threw the switch.
Good night and may God bless. Thanks for all the updates throughout the day for those of us who were cubicle-bound!
Good name, NCjim.
The news is worse for casualties I see. Thanks for the updates, prayers lifted for the victims and survivors.
Hi, prairie. Yes. We went from 2 dead to 4 and now to 8. We'd been told to expect it.
We're in the curfew area so I guess we can't go out drinking and dancing like we'd planned :-)
Well I'm awful late to this thread lol
Years ago when I lived up in Syracuse, NY, I lived across the street from a plant that handled chlorine. They had a warning alarm when there was a leak, of which there were two while I lived there. You could smell it and feel it before the alarm ever went off. Everybody knew to go inside and shut the windows. It was harsh on the nose/throat/eyes, but everyone was so used to the chemical plants around there I don't think anybody had any fear of injury.
We're all pretty calm here, just watchful. There's nothing I need to do outside the house tomorrow that can't wait another day to be sure.
We don't have the kind of warning system they had in your area so by the time they warned us, it would be too late.
The additional chemicals in the SC wreck are cresol (another phenolic) and sodium hydroxide (in other words lye). They can burn you on contact, but again they are nowhere near as dangerous as the chlorine because they don't convert to a gas on release . . . in other words they just leak out of the car and lie on the ground rather than billowing up into a fog and spreading all over with the wind.
It should dissipate fairly quickly- depending on how much leaked. I would worry too much. Doesn't hurt to play it safe though.
There's no way to warn in a case like that though.
Just a rumor at this point, but there is talk that the FBI is investigating sabotage, on suspicion that the switch may have been tampered with by someone in retaliation for the deadly car/train wreck a few months ago. Apparently in that wreck there were 3 autos that ran through the warning signals at a crossing a few blocks away from this derailment, with the 3rd getting hit by the train, resulting in 5 deaths in that auto.
Article about the November car/train wreck:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138155,00.html
It was a 90 ton leak and considered to be a major event by the NTSB. They had hoped the sun would come out and it would dissipate but the weather didn't cooperate.
They say the heavier night air will push the chemicals to the ground and that's why they evacuated 5,400 from the crash site area.
I have good books to read tomorrow and will probably just stay in. We didn't see one single car pass our house today and that's highly unusual.
(C_G laughs hysterically)
That's about the size of it...
A neighbor and I wondered if it was sabotage from the earlier wreck in November. If so, they are so misguided I have no words. Those cars involved in November ignored the warning lights!
Thanks for the link though; I'll follow that storyline carefully.
If that IS true, and they find who moved the switch, I hope they charge them with multiple counts of murder.
You'd have to be a world class idiot to pull that sort of trick as revenge against the railroad . . . and wind up killing a bunch of your neighbors. Wow.
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