(The St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted the following story by Ken Leister on its website on February 11.)
DU QUOIN, Ill. — Steve Ellison can’t wait to get home to his four Chinese pugs and the garbage truck that sits idle in his driveway in Tamaroa.
Ellison and 800 other inhabitants of the small Southern Illinois town, including those within a three-mile radius, were told to stay away for a second straight day Monday while cleanup crews were mopping up the remains of Sunday’s train derailment, a tangled mess of railroad tankers filled with toxic chemicals.
Some residents may get back in their homes today at the earliest.
Meanwhile, officials aren’t speculating on what caused the Illinois Central-Canadian National train with its hazardous cargo to jump the tracks about 75 miles southeast of St. Louis.
“This is still a catastrophe, even in a small town,” said Ellison, a garbage truck driver who figures he’s losing $500 every day his truck sits in Tamaroa. “We probably don’t get as much attention as a large city would, but we are still affected just as much.”
Like dozens of his neighbors, Ellison also worried about his dogs, who were left behind in the town’s hasty retreat from the burning rail cars. Two-thirds of the 20-plus cars that derailed contained chemicals, including methanol, vinyl chloride, formaldehyde and hydrochloric acid.
Peter Marshall, vice president of the Gulf Division for the Canadian National Railway Co., said crews were trying to transfer dangerous vinyl chloride from one of the derailed tanker cars to another vessel Monday.
Bulldozers were brought in to help with the cleanup and clear the cars to the side. Lime was brought in to neutralize the acid that had escaped.
“There never was a serious release,” Marshall said Monday. “These cars are very well-manufactured and they are built to withstand this type of derailment.”
Work on pumping the vinyl chloride into another rail car, a process that can take several hours, was delayed briefly Monday afternoon when another tanker containing hydrochloric acid ruptured. Officials in charge of the cleanup were waiting to complete that work before letting people go home.
Marshall said air monitoring devices showed most of the hazardous fumes were contained to the area immediately surrounding the derailed cars. The accident was not expected to threaten ground water supplies or wells, he said.
The northbound, 102-car train derailed Sunday morning. The train was traveling at 39 mph -below the speed limit of 50 mph, said Jack Burke, a spokesman for Canadian National. About two dozen trains – including Amtrak passenger trains – pass through Tamaroa each day.
The train originated in Memphis, Tenn., and was bound for Champaign, Ill. But many of the cars loaded with hazardous materials originated in the so-called Chemical Belt in Louisiana, Burke said.
Nobody has been injured in the derailment, the evacuation or the painstaking cleanup. The train had a standard crew of one engineer and one conductor when cars 29 through 51 tumbled off the track.
Burke said it was too early to speculate about a cause for the derailment. The National Transportation Safety Board also was en route.
“Nobody wants to know the cause of this more than we do,” Burke said. “And we will conduct a thorough investigation. But right now, the emphasis has to be on correcting the problem. Getting the vinyl chloride and other materials removed and getting the folks back in their houses.”
Many of the 800 to 1,000 people who were evacuated stayed at nearby motels or with relatives in surrounding towns. Police said some people had to be taken out of the evacuated area, but no arrests were made.
Perry County Sheriff Keith Kellerman said about 50 household pets were evacuated, and he added that farmers were allowed to pass roadblocks to feed their cattle and horses.
Railroad officials said they planned to set up a claims office within a week and encouraged residents to keep track of their expenses.
Many people crammed into the American Legion Post, where the Red Cross was offering meals to those displaced by the accident.
Dozens of people stood in line for clothing vouchers. Children who got an unexpected school holiday played games and worked on puzzles.
“This is very disruptive to people’s way of life,” said evacuee Anna Davis, who has worked on hazardous materials cleanups like this one. But, she added, “Everybody has family in all of these little communities to help out in times like these.”