(The following story Joseph L. Wagner appeared on the Cleveland Plain Dealer website on October 14.)
PAINESVILLE, Ohio — Relieved residents were allowed to return to their homes Saturday, three days after a train derailment spilled tanker carloads of hazardous but reportedly nontoxic materials into the air and water.
“Not being here, I felt safer,” said Michelle Dietz, whose home is a quarter-mile from the accident scene.
Her family, including two small children, was among several families put up in an Eastlake hotel.
Police told them to leave their homes as the 120-car CSX train blasted thick plumes of dark smoke into the air.
The evacuations were precautionary, law enforcement officials said.
Dietz was satisfied that CSX “did the best they could” for displaced residents, adding that the railroad paid for her family’s hotel stay.
One problem, however. “We forgot our swimsuits,” she said.
Amber Sauric was at work during the accident and went directly to her parents’ home in Timberlake without being able to collect her dog, Bailey. A family member picked Bailey up later.
“Living near the tracks, we didn’t think anything like this would happen,” Sauric said.
Fire crews and heavy-equipment operators were at the scene Saturday.
Onlookers were blocked from entering neighborhoods next to the tracks, but motorists stopped to view the wreckage from a nearby overpass.