(The following article by David Hebert appeared on San Antonio television station KENS 5 Eyewitness News’ website on September 17.)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Cleanup is underway this evening after a train derailed on the South Side.
It happened around 11:30 a.m. this morning at a sorting yard at Quintana Road and Southwest Military Drive.
In the sorting yard trains are separated and put back together and somehow five cars derailed spilling non-toxic substances on the ground. The substance was not hazardous to humans and no one was hurt.
Union Pacific officials told Eyewitness News that today’s derailment was because of a track switcher.
While some residents are breathing a sigh of relief, others are wondering when the derailments are going stop.
“Is it your daughter? Is it your son? Your mother living here across the street (from all the train derailment)? No it’s ours,” said Patricia Medina, a nearby resident. “There shouldn’t even be an opening for anything to happen. Who’s taking care of us?”
For the second time in less than four months Union Pacific has given nearby residents a pretty scary scene. A Union Pacific trains goes off the tracks and nearby homeowners are left to wonder how close were we to yet another disaster.
“This is to soon and they are just showing how bad they do business. We are at risk. We’re the taxpayers.” Medina said.
Of course that risk has been there for years, but it seems to take on some added weight back in June when a train derailment just south San Antonio cause the deaths of three people.
One nearby business owner, who didn’t want to be identified, says for a long time the people around the area felt they were caught in a game of Russian roulette.
“We’re seeing this probably every three to four months out here in this area,” the businessman said. “It’s a common occurrence out here in this area. This is the third one probably in the last 12 months.”
The business owner said most of those cases simply fly under the radar.
Like today, when plastic pellets and paper are the only things that are spilled. Local officials don’t play a role at all.
“The thing we’re here for is if necessary to we would keep traffic out of the way,” said Sgt. James Eigner with the San Antonio Police Department.