AMITE, La. — Five area schools are closed today, some roads around U.S. Highway 51 remain blocked and hundreds are still out of their homes because of a freight train derailment and hazardous material spill just south of Amite Saturday afternoon, the Daily Star reported.
Amite Elementary School, Amite West Side Middle School, Amite High School, Roseland Elementary School, Northwood Preparatory and Oak Forrest Academy are all closed today. School officials said this morning that they wouldn’t make a decision to reopen the schools for Tuesday until later today.
A Red Cross evacuation center has been set up at Roseland Elementary and an estimated 260 people were there as of this morning. A mandatory evacuation order was issued Saturday for a half-mile radius around the roughly mile-long accident site. An estimated 500 people had to evacuate.
This morning a stretch of U.S. 51 from South Magnolia Street to La Rock Road was blockaded along with all the side streets between the highway and the tracks.
Several businesses in the area remain closed, including Family Dollar Store, Hood Automotive and O’Reilly’s Auto Parts where officials have set up their command post.
Cleanup crews worked all weekend removing 13 of the 19 derailed cars, said Patti Giannoble of the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Officials with the Louisiana State Police, Canadian National Railroad, the State Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are in charge of the cleanup activities, with support from local law enforcement and fire departments.
No one can say just yet what caused the accident, when it will be cleaned up completely or when people can safely return to their homes.
“Public safety has to be the Number 1 concern,” Giannoble said.
The removed cars did not contain hazardous materials, but at least five of the remaining cars do.
Hydrochloric acid has leaked from two cars and at least one of three cars carrying styrene nomer inhibitor, a flammable material, has leaked until it became empty.
The styrene material has a strong odor and breathing it can cause nausea, said Parish President Gordon Burgess. Hydrochloric acid may also cause respiratory problems.
Two vacuum trucks have been brought in to siphon the materials from the cars. HazMat cleanup teams will also be working on cleaning the spilled material from the ground and tracks.
Burgess declared a state of emergency Saturday, which remains in place today. The Office of Emergency Management remains active and open today.
“As I understand it, there are several tank cars to be uprighted. I think within the next few hours you’ll see a lot of improvement at the site itself,” Burgess said.
Amite resident Gloria Lupo said this morning that no one knocked on her door to tell her to evacuate on Saturday.
Lupo, who lives near the wreck site on Southwest Central Avenue facing the tracks, said she heard a noise Saturday afternoon and thought there had been a car-train wreck. She said she called 911 to report it and looked around a little from her yard, but didn’t see derailed cars.
Later she saw a neighbor talking to someone in a passing car and then took a nap.
Lupo said no one knocked on her door to tell her about the evacuation.
She awoke around 6 p.m. and saw upright train cars still stopped on the tracks in front of her house. After a phone call to 911, she walked out of the neighborhood to the command post on U.S. 51 and eventually was brought to a friend’s house to stay.
Lupo said she experienced a headache, nausea and some “stinging” on her skin.
She’s back at work this morning, however.
“I don’t want to get on to these guys or anything like this. I think they need more training. If I had been a little baby or an old person, I could have been hurt,” Lupo said.