As many as 20 reportedly dead in evacuee bus fire
07:38 AM CDT on Friday, September 23, 2005A passenger bus carrying evacuees from the Houston area exploded into flames near Dallas and there are as many as 20 deaths and 25 injuries.
The bus was carrying elderly evacuees from Bellaire, according to the Dallas Fire Department.
“There were 45 souls on the bus ... at this point we believe we have about half accounted for,” Dallas County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz. He said early indications were that a mechanical problem caused the blaze and that passengers’ oxygen tanks caught fire.
The bus was engulfed with flames, causing a 17-mile backup on a freeway that was already heavily congested with evacuees from the Gulf Coast. By early Friday morning, the bus was reduced to a blackened, burned-out shell, surrounded by numerous police cars and ambulances.
“The early indications are this is a mechanical issue,” Peritz said. “The driver did survive the accident. It’s my understanding he went back ont he bus several times to try to evacuate people.”
Oh Dear God! This country is being brought to its knees in so many ways.
So terribly sad.