(The Associated Press circulated the following article by Duncan Mansfield on June 21.)
SWEETWATER, Tenn. — Investigators searched for the cause of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailment Tuesday that forced residents from their rural Tennessee homes as cleanup crews worked to remove hazardous materials from the crash site.
“We dodged a bullet again,” Monroe County Mayor Alan Watson said, noting another Norfolk Southern train went off the tracks in downtown Sweetwater in 1996.
Neither accident caused injuries or leaks, but both involved evacuations.
“We are all very concerned about safety,” Watson said. “How often do they check the tracks? How secure are they? How safe are they?”
Federal Railroad Administration officials were on the scene, but there was no word on a possible cause. “We have no indication at this time,” Sheriff Doug Watson said, more than 13 hours after the crash occurred.
The train derailed on a relatively straight section of track bordering two-lane Highway 11, which was expected to remain closed until today.
While wreckage littered the area, Watson said only four derailed cars remained to be treated late Tuesday. Two were boxcars that posed no problems, and two were gas tankers – one filled with propane and the other with butane. Officials expected to transfer the propane to tanker trucks overnight. The butane car was to be trucked out in a few days.
About 65 residents were evacuated. After spending the day at a Red Cross shelter at Sweetwater High School, they were sent to motels overnight while emergency workers checked on their pets at home. Officials hoped to lift the evacuation today.
The 84-car train was traveling along a main line between Chattanooga and Knoxville when the derailment occurred about a mile outside Sweetwater at about 2:45 a.m.
The derailed cars carried liquid propane; butane; carbon dioxide; methyl methacrylate, which is used to make plastic; and propylene oxide, which is used to make polyurethane; flame retardants; and synthetic lubricants, Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Susan Terpay said.
“None of those cars are leaking,” Terpay said. “In situations like this, the safest thing to do is to transfer the loads into another container.”
Police roused residents from bed, worried the chemicals could leak, mix and explode.
“I woke up with a pounding on the door, and all I could see was blue lights flashing,” said Jackie Carver, who rushed to the shelter with his daughter and her boyfriend.
Most evacuees slept on cots during the day after spending much of the night awake.
“They’re beat. They’re worn out,” shelter director Robert Ramsey said.
Terpay said 21 cars on the 84-car train left the tracks, spewing paper, plywood, soap and plastic pellets.
Norfolk Southern rerouted their trains as huge cranes, bulldozers and a stream of dump trucks filled with gravel arrived to push the wreckage out of the way and lay new track.