(The following story by Jeff Wilkinson appeared on The State website on January 14.)
GRANITEVILLE, S.C. — At Byrd Elementary School, a small army of inspectors and school officials fanned out through halls and classrooms Thursday, canvassing every square inch of the building for telltale signs of corrosion that would signal lingering chlorine.
“Anybody with a badge is here,” said Allen Mayberry, director of maintenance for the Aiken County School District.
Byrd is one of three schools that remain closed after a train struck another on a siding Jan. 6, releasing a greenish-yellow cloud of deadly chlorine gas that killed nine people and injured about 240.
Throughout the day, Graniteville and neighboring Warrenville slowly began to come back to life. But hundreds of police still man every street corner leading to the crash site, which residents and emergency workers now call “ground zero.”
Byrd Elementary is in one of three zones lifted Thursday from the evacuation order. But emergency workers still had not decided Thursday whether the schools can open Tuesday, after the Martin Luther King Day holiday.
School officials were to meet with emergency workers today to determine whether the three schools with about 1,000 students — Byrd, Leavelle McCampbell Middle School and Freedman Parenting Center — can open next week.
“We’re changing all the air filters,” said assistant superintendent Troy Nobles. “We’re checking out all the mechanical and electrical systems. We’ve got our own engineer to clear (the building) beyond anything required by the EPA.”
In addition, all surfaces will be cleaned, he said. All food will be thrown out — canned or not — as well as any medicines.
Nobles said the same procedures would be used at Leavelle McCampbell as soon as Byrd is finished. By noon Thursday, inspectors had found nothing to prevent the school from opening on time, state inspectors said.
“Everything looks great,” said chief deputy state fire marshal William Galloway.
In other developments:
o Business owners in Graniteville and Warrenville were assessing their losses as they got into their stores and shops on Thursday.
“We had a lot of food expire — milk, butter, eggs,” said Aminul “Mo” Haider, owner of the Quick Pantry on 2nd Street in Graniteville. “We lost a lot on our check-cashing business. It will take a lot to come back from this. We don’t know what will happen. But I have lawyers. They will figure it out.”
o Scam artists continue to descend on the area.
Police report they are investigating 60 people who changed the addresses on their driver’s licenses, apparently in an attempt to collect relief from Norfolk Southern Railroad.
People also have been trying to sell water purifiers and decontamination kits, saying they are required by health officials. They are not.
And police said people have been offering to buy sales slips from Wal-Mart and other stores — apparently to turn them in for reimbursement from the railroad’s relief fund.