(The following story by Terry L. Jones appeared on the Hattiesburg American website on September 18.)
HATTIESBURG, Miss. — Should another train derail and release hazardous materials into the city, Hattiesburg’s emergency responders say they want to be better prepared.
They made an effort toward that mission on Monday.
For the first time since its inception eight years ago, the TRANSCAER (Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response) Whistle-Stop Tour pulled into the Norfolk Southern rail yard downtown for a day of classroom-style training and demonstrations addressing community preparedness for the transportation of hazardous materials.
“Seeing something like this is good,” said J.W. Ledbetter, director of Mississippi’s Homeland Security. “Having responders here is critical. I know what comes through our state, and we need good trained certified responders.”
For six hours Monday, a bevy of city and state emergency personnel learned how to better prepare for emergencies from experts from across the country, officials said.
Classes were held in the rail cars aboard the special eight-car train.
“This is specifically transportation related,” said Mike Stiner, assistant manager of hazardous materials with Norfolk Southern. “We’re here to help. No community will be prepared to respond to a big event. So we want to make sure human health and property damage is minimized.”
Terry Steed, director of Forrest County’s Emergency Management, said about 27 trains transporting hazardous materials come through Hattiesburg daily.
“Railroads is one of the safest modes of transportation,” Steed said. “We’ve only had five derailments here in the last 15 years.”
The most recent occurred on March 8 when two Kansas City Southern rail cars jumpED the tracks and ruptured south of Hattiesburg.
The trains’ derailment released liquefied sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid into the environment.
More than 40 homes on Ralston Road were evacuated and Myers Creek had to be dammed because chemicals had spilled into the water killing many of its fish, previous reports said.
“We knew that Kansas City Southern had an incident here which made it more important to be here,” said David Schoendorfer, manager of hazardous materials at Norfolk Southern.
The tour will travel more than 300 miles in five days, making stops in Meridian, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Ala., before ending on Friday in Columbus, Ga.
Officials say they will train more than 1,000 emergency responders during the tour.