(The following story by Rick Brundrett appeared on The State website on January 11.)
AIKEN, S.C. — Emergency workers Saturday afternoon found what they had feared — the ninth victim in Thursday’s deadly train wreck and chlorine spill.
The body of Avondale Mills worker Willie L. Tyler, 57, of Aiken, who authorities on Friday said was missing, was discovered about 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Michael Frank said. The body was found about 20 yards inside the front entrance of the mill’s Woodhead Division, one of the four mill buildings, Frank said.
Frank said officials are still concerned about the whereabouts of several other unaccounted for workers at the nearby Gregg plant.
Meanwhile, authorities announced that thousands of Graniteville residents evacuated after a thick, toxic plume was released likely won’t be going home sooner than Wednesday.
“There is a potential for another release,” Aiken County Sheriff Michael Hunt said, citing meetings with hazardous materials experts. “It is their advice that we keep the mile-radius evacuation until at least probably Wednesday.
“I want to ask our citizens to be very patient with us,” the sheriff said during a press conference. “We just got to take our time for the safety of the folks we are serving.”
A dusk-to-dawn curfew for a two-mile radius around the crash site was changed to a one-mile radius Saturday night. The curfew will remain in effect during the evacuation, Hunt said. Six local schools will be closed through Tuesday.
Also Saturday, public safety officers started to distribute food and water to family pets left outside in the evacuation area and seen from roadways. Animal control officials said they would retrieve outdoor pets upon request and bring them to nearby Midland Valley High School. But they didn’t have a plan for rescuing stranded indoor pets in the restricted zone.
Work was suspended on the repair of the leaking tank Saturday to allow the search for Tyler’s body to continue.
High concentrations of chlorine gas had prevented emergency workers from doing a complete search of the mills property earlier.
Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton on Saturday revealed the locations of where five other Avondale Mills workers were found:
o Allen Frazier, 58, was discovered in a first-floor office in the Gregg plant; Steven Bagby, 38, was in a break room adjacent to the office.
o Fred Rushton III, 41, was found on an outside loading dock at the Stevens steam plant. In an unrelated matter Saturday, firefighters were called to that plant to contain a fire in a coal hopper.
o Willie Shealey, 43, and John Laird, 24, made it about 8 feet into a wooded area near the Woodhead Division building before apparently collapsing and dying.
All five workers, along with the train engineer Christopher Seeling, 28; truck driver Joseph Stone and Tony DeLoach, 56, who was found in his Main Street home, died of chlorine inhalation, Carlton said.
The men died after a 42-car Norfolk Southern freight train heading from Augusta to Columbia slammed into a parked train on a side track next to the mills about 2:40 a.m. Thursday. Fourteen cars on the moving train derailed, including three chlorine tank cars, one of which leaked.
Besides the nine fatalities, at least 234 people went to area hospitals, mainly with respiratory ailments. Of the 58 admitted, 38 remained hospitalized Saturday, five in critical condition.
Debbie Hersman, a National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman, said Saturday that chlorine concentrations at the site remained at “unsafe levels.”
Hersman earlier said each of the three chlorine cars were fully loaded with about 90 tons of pressurized liquid chlorine. Thom Berry, spokesman for the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, said that as of Friday night, an estimated 60 to 70 tons had leaked out of the one car, leaving it about one-third full.
RECOVERING
One of those admitted Thursday was Nicholas Randall, 21, of Graniteville, who came upon the wreck site while riding in a car with a buddy. Randall, a lifelong asthma sufferer, said Saturday from his third-floor room at Aiken Regional Medical Centers that he was able overnight Friday to breathe for the first time with out an oxygen tube.
He said his friend, Stewart Twilley, was still on oxygen.
“I was scared to death when I first got here,” he said.
Randall, Twilley and another friend, John Hill, 20, were celebrating Hill’s short home leave from the Marines early Thursday when they suddenly drove upon the wreck site. Randall said a thick, bright green cloud quickly swallowed their vehicles.
They jumped out and ran several hundred yards but were crawling and vomiting by the time they made it out of the fog, Randall said, adding, “I just laid there and prayed.” A Good Samaritan couple picked them up and drove them to a nearby roadblock, and Aiken sheriff’s deputy Kevin Lyles then took them to the hospital, with Randall on an oxygen tank.
Randall, a fine arts major at USC Aiken, said he’s grateful to be alive. “I don’t know how anybody could survive it,” he said.
THE CRASH SITE
Berry said a contractor hired by Norfolk Southern, Hulcher Services Inc., on Friday began removing debris from a 180-degree area around the wreck. That contractor today will patch a fist-size hole in the leaking tanker, then neutralize the remaining chlorine before removing it to an empty car.
After that, the two other chlorine cars and another car containing sodium hydroxide will be unloaded to empty cars, he said.
The patch itself could take more than a day to install, officials said. They warned of a “secondary release” from either the leaking car or another severely damaged chlorine car.
The cause of the crash is unknown; Hersman said Saturday that although the FBI is assisting in the NTSB investigation, “we have no concerns about either vandalism or foul play.” FBI workers, however, removed a section of a manual switch in question for fingerprint analysis, she said.
The NTSB is looking at all factors that contributed to the crash, including the possibility of human error or mechanical failure, Hersman said. Investigators have interviewed the three unidentified crew members of the parked trained, she said.
Union representatives were with each during the interviews, according to the NTSB. After parking the train, the three took a taxi just before 7 p.m. to Aiken, where they are based. NTSB officials have also interviewed the taxi driver and two Norfolk Southern dispatchers.
A post-mortem toxicology test was done on the engineer, according to NTSB officials, but results aren’t yet available.
Hersman said on a typical day, five trains pass through the crash site but no trains had gone through between the time the first train’s crew went off duty, about 6 p.m., and the time of the crash.
LIABILITY
Crisis counseling will be provided tonight for Graniteville residents and mill workers.
Some residents on Saturday were angry about the extent of the damage to their lives and their property.
Barnwell lawyer Terry Richardson said some victims’ families in Thursday’s wreck have contacted him about possible lawsuits. Richardson has handled suits against railroads, tobacco firms and other large companies.
If Norfolk Southern is sued and found liable, he said, the railroad could face tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Richardson said the federal government in other cases has estimated the value of a human life at $3 million to $5 million. Given those figures, damages for the families of the nine victims could go as high as $45 million. Richardson said juries could award even higher amounts.
Another lawyer, Carl Solomon of Columbia, said Saturday he is representing at least one resident who claims the railroad tried to get him to waive his legal rights in exchange for money for temporary lodging and food. He said the liability waiver, printed on the back of $150 checks distributed at an Aiken church, was “extremely broad language.”
“If you want to eat and sleep, you have to waive your rights — that would be a great indictment on the character of Norfolk Southern,” Solomon said.
The railroad said in a prepared statement issued late Friday that the language on the checks “does not preclude submission of personal injury claims, claims for subsequently incurred incidental expenses, and unforeseen property damage claims in the future.”
Norfolk Southern spokesman Robin Chapman said Saturday the railroad has helped about 1,000 people and distributed about 500 checks, though he didn’t immediately know the dollar amount.
Staff writer John Drake contributed to this report.