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.
Residents still urged to stay indoors with ventillation off. Thankfully it's mild here.
FBI has been called in, although that may be standard operating procedure.
The University is being used as a staging area to decontaminate people before they are admitted to the hospital. The scenes look like something from when we had our anthrax attacks.
The three local channels have been pre-empted since 4:00 a.m.
All chemicals are 'hazardous' to the crAP. These three are CRESOL, Sodium Hydroxide and Chlorine gas.
'Member, ya' kain't spiel krap widoubt AP
I wonder what caused the train accident in the first place. Chlorine gas is nasty...
thanks :^)
btt
I think that's why the FBI was called in. (To find out what happened). Weather is in the 60's and 70's last few days, no fog.
Three dead so far. Roadblocks still in place and residents told to stay in until further notice.
It is these days.
Apparently a switch that should have been closed, allowing the train moving down the single track to pass the other train sitting in the siding, was left open, thus directing the moving train into the occupied siding and hitting the sitting train. The question is why was this switch open. From what I've just read, this happened on a rail line that doesn't have signals. Instead they are given verbal permission by a dispatcher to write down authority to occupy pieces of track, which they then repeat to the dispatcher to confirm accuracy. Part of this system confers responsibility for switch position. The system works fine as long as everybody follows the rules, pays attention, and doesn't make a mistake.
Unfortunately, without signals(which show track occupancy) and other sensors that show switch position and allow the dispatcher to control the switch, there aren't backup safeguards if someone does make a mistake. Now add in the factor that the railroads are allowed to work many of their employees on a system that doesn't allow for a regular sleep cycle. You can be called to work at 3am, work until 2pm, called back at 8pm to report at 10pm, work until 9:59am, called again at 4pm to report at 6pm, work until 5:30am, called again at 11:30 for 1:30pm, off early at 5pm (but you can't fall asleep), called at 11pm for 1am, work until 1pm, on and on and on. Many of these guys are walking zombies, and crew fatigue is one of the most prevalent factors in railroad accidents. Huge issues that has been allowed to go unrepaired. So the most likely cause is simply crew error, someone reported in the clear in the siding without closing the switch (though not necessarily the crews in the wreck, could have been a prior crew.)
But there have also been cases of tampering with switches by kids or vandals, and it is even possible that it was an act of terrorism, but the latter is very, very, very unlikely given the remote location and relatively sparse population. There are safeguards to prevent unauthorized movements of switches by persons other than railroad workers.
These types of wrecks have happened before, ever since railroads were invented.
continued prayer heavenward
I did accident investigation for the old Southern RR, but mostly in the Atlanta metro area . . . and everything here is signalled out the wazoo, if anything there's a chance of confusion because of too MANY signals.
I guess they can't afford to do every siding on the entire main line, but surely the major ones . . . ?!?!?
We had a Cl2 spill at a siding near our house awhile back. It was an ungodly mess, and even a little bit of the stuff will hurt you.
Fortunately we were upwind and the gas tended to settle towards the river where there wasn't much residential property.
Stay indoors til you get the all clear.
Thanks. Yes, I'm staying indoors.
3 fatalities and 3 in critical condition. Untold number of others in serious condition. Media reports at the hospital they can still smell chlorine outside.
Thanks for that good explanation.
I don't think there is anything related to terrorism here but it must be SOP to call in the FBI, although local media says they don't have an answer why this was done.
R.I.P. Southern RR
I doublechecked the map, and Graniteville is on their line from Augusta, GA to Columbia, SC. Probably not enough traffic to economically justify signalling the line would be my guess (I used to work for the NS, but not down south), though after the lawsuits they may end up putting in switch-alignment indicators (which won't help with broken rails or a bridge out, but to be fair, the railroads aren't really earning their cost of capital these days, yet are swamped with new traffic that requires capacity expansion.)
Speaking of signals, the best I ever heard of were color position lights, where instead of just the normal red, amber, green they also were duplicated with 3 lights in a row: green vertical, amber diagonal, and red horizontal. Much safer and easier to determine from a distance, but I guess they cost too much, because I understand they are being phased-out and replace with the standard 'traffic light'-type signals.
Sometimes, even as a conservative, I question how effective the FRA is with their safety oversight.
TWC with no CTC islands. Scary.
And those in the know, know to keep their mouths shut.
It is said around here that if there is an accident in this area, 9 out of 10 times it is CSX. I guess this is one of those 1 in 10 times.
Another train accident today...in Kentucky I think. It was a CSX train that wasn't carrying chemicals like this one in SC.
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