(The following story by Catharine Hadley appeared on the News-Messenger website on June 10.)
CLAY TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Hazardous materials were in train cars on either side of a train derailment near Opfer-Lenz Road in Clay Township Monday night, but nothing dangerous was in the 22 cars that were blown off the tracks, a fire official said.
“We got lucky,” said Bruce Moritz, chief of the Allen-Clay Joint Fire District. He said some of the hazardous material in the unaffected cars was alcohol.
The 144-car Norfolk-Southern train was eastbound for Bellevue at about 6:30 p.m. when high winds blew the cars off the tracks, according to Moritz.
“It appears to be strait-line, but I don’t know,” the chief said. “We do have numerous damages of houses in the area.”
The cars that derailed included car carriers, three empty tank cars which had carried hot asphalt, freight boxes and grain carriers. An environmental clean-up team was called in to take care of spilled wheat, which Moritz said could ferment and create alcohol.
The tracks were damaged, he said.
Railroad personnel were called to the scene, as well as Corman Derailment Services Inc. and Hutcher’s derailment clean-up company. Corman sent five semi trucks loaded with heavy equipment to the derailment Monday night.
“They’ll be here all night and most of tomorrow,” the chief said.
There were no evacuations in the area, according to Mike Drusbacky, deputy director of the Ottawa County Emergency Management Agency.
Dick Buhrow lives down the road from the derailment, at 1875 N. Opfer-Lenz Road.
“All of a sudden it just started blowing and it rained so hard you couldn’t see out your windows,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was. I’ve never seen it rain so hard in my whole life.”
Buhrow said he didn’t know about the derailment until he had tried to go to Perrysburg and saw what had happened. He pointed to a blown breaker on a utility pole at the intersection of Opfer-Lenz and Hellwig Roads.
He said he and his wife have two generators, and they planned to spend the night in their motorhome.
The Clay Township Police Department and the Ohio State Highway Patrol responded to the scene.