(The following story by Haley Hughes appeared on the Aiken Standard website on January 6, 2010.)
AIKEN, S.C. — On Jan. 6, 2005, a Norfolk Southern train veered off the main track and collided with a parked train. The resulting crash resulted in the release of 160,000 pounds of chlorine gas. Nine people were killed. More than 500 were treated at local hospitals. More than 5,400 were evacuated. And one town was changed forever. Five years after one of the most deadly chemical spills in American history, residents of Graniteville reflect on that fateful morning five years ago today.
Scott Harley, owner of Harley’s Automotive on Main Street, left the store around 2 a.m. Jan. 6 and headed to his house just one mile away. He heard the train cars collide, but didn’t grasp the enormity of what happened until he turned on the TV later that morning. He was on standby to be evacuated. Harley’s Automotive shut down for three weeks.
“I don’t know much about trains, but I knew when it happened that someone hadn’t turned the switch. Graniteville is steadily getting worse and worse as far as the economy goes. The mill shut down. People moved out of town. It’s gone from being an industrial town to a ghost town.”
Wraylea Robinson woke up to her phone ringing. It was a friend telling her to leave her house.
“I said, ‘Girl, stop playing with me.’ Then I turned on the TV. I covered up my head, got in a neighbor’s car, and we drove to a hotel. Graniteville has changed a lot. Trees are down. The mills are closed. When it rains or something, you still get a smell.”
Joseph Nash, who was 11 years old at the time and attending Leavelle McCampbell Middle School, woke up and began dressing for school like a normal day on Jan. 6, but his parents said there was no school.
“We were out of school a couple of weeks. I could still smell the chlorine all the way out to my house on Whaley Pond Road. They now seem a lot more strict about who’s running the railroad. We’re not allowed to skateboard there anymore.”
Sue Graham and her family chose to evacuate their home since they lived within a mile radius of the wreckage site. They had to take precautions to protect their youngest daughter since she has asthma and made a trip to the doctor for medicine.
“Of course, the chlorine was pretty bad. It burned our eyes, our throats. The mills closing really affected a lot of people. People’s health definitely got worse. We’ve never had something that bad happen here before. It’s really sad for those who lost family members. It’s hard to believe it’s been five years.”
Steve Maker worked for a convenience store chain at the time and lived on the Trenton side of Graniteville. But, he still felt the impact. A friend whose husband was a paramedic for Aiken County called Maker and warned him something had happened and told him to stay out of Graniteville. The same train track runs within a hale-mile of his house.
“The loss of jobs at Avondale had a great impact on Graniteville. The economy has worsened since then. I wish we could see more growth. I hope the sign company (MCA Industries has announced it will relocate its operations to a building in the Sage Mill Industrial Park) does well.”
Mary Griffin woke up coughing that morning, but didn’t know what the cause was until she heard the news. She lives in the Breezy Hill area but did not have to evacuate.
“I knew it was a pretty big mess. Graniteville has changed. It has gone down with the mill closing. The first time I drove down there after the accident, I had that funny feeling.”
Barbara Martin
“I was at home when I heard about it. I first heard from the news. I was shocked and surprised that something like this could happen in this area. I knew trains and people, and I know myself – I used to try and beat the trains at the tracks – but you just don’t expect something like this to happen.”
Terry Carter
“I was a judge here in Graniteville when it happened. I was at my home in Midland Valley when I first heard it happened. I really didn’t know what was happening; I just heard you couldn’t come back over here. We had to work in a courtroom in Aiken for a couple of weeks.”
Yvonne Toole
“I was working at the Aiken Standard the night it happened. My ex-husband called and told me I might not be able to get home because there was a train wreck and the road was blocked off. My son was working at the Gregg Mill, and he was trying to save a lady who was pregnant. I thought something had happened to him because he wouldn’t answer his phone.
“I thought he was running through the woods to get to my car, but he went back to help. I was parked on the side of Robert M. Bell Parkway near the Exxon. That is where they had the roads blocked, and, after about an hour, the police said no one could park on the side of the road. I went to my mother’s where I stayed for two weeks. I heard from my son the next day. His car was left at the mill, and he had been transported to the hospital.”
Debra Moore
“I used to be a resident of Graniteville in the early ’90s when I moved her from New York to be near my grandchildren. I was living in Augusta when the accident happened. I was working as a registered nurse at Aiken Regional Medical Centers. My good friend Leonard Mathis died; not knowing what he was going into, he was always helping somebody. He died a little later. I remember seeing him on the news; he was wearing a red shirt.
“Working as a RN on 4 Main at Aiken Regional, I saw the aftermath on the people who came in. They came to my floor before they went home. It was horrible.”
Rebecca Stevens
“I wasn’t home when it happened; I was traveling and in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. I saw it come across the television screen. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get home to Langley. I remember driving near the area and seeing a huge cloud in the sky above the area, and everyone was talking about the train wreck.”
Phil Napier, G.V.W. fire chief
“I was at home asleep when I was paged out at 2:39 a.m. I remember responding and hearing a firemen crying out for help, he said he couldn’t breath. I remember talking to the train engineer who said there had been a train wreck and a chemical spill. He was overcome by the chlorine gas and fell to ground.
“We were evacuated from our home for eight days. I pretty much stayed at the command post and then the community service building was used for one day as the temporary fire station. I was more worried about the community and the affects on them. There were two or three days with little to no sleep.
“I was the direct incident commander working and coordinating with other agencies and organizing search and rescue teams. There was a fire going in the steam plant at the Avondale Mills pretty much the entire time. There were people who initially refused to leave and then later decided to leave and we had to get them out. There were animals that had been left behind that needed to be fed. There were gas leaks starting everywhere.
“It was a tragic mistake that once it happened was out of everyone’s control from that moment on until the chlorine stopped leaking. Unless you were here and lived it, you will never understand. I just thank God no more people were killed or injured than were. It could have been a lot worse.
“I think the derailment was used as an excuse to close down the textile industry which was devastating to the community. It really hurt the economy of the entire community and degraded the appearance to have shut down buildings not being maintained.
“I feel after five years, we finally have some hope for the future with the possibility of new industry coming to the area and the formation of the GVW Community Investment Corporation. I feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”