Trains collide near Talladega

[BHAMBARONS]

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

 

Trains collide near Lincoln, forcing evacuation

Two trains collided today in Talladega County near Lincoln, and authorities evacuated nearby homes because of potential danger from a gas plume caused by the accident.

 

Three train crew members sustained minor injuries in the crash and were taken to an area hospital, said Susan Terpay, spokeswoman for Norfolk Southern railroad.

 

The accident scene is about a half mile into Talladega County, near Stines Lane and U.S. 78, Talladega Emergency Management officials said Wednesday night. Norfolk Southern tracks run parallel to U.S. 78 between the Coosa River and Lincoln.

 

Talladega EMA officials said several of the train cars were on fire. Terpay said rail officials believe just the two locomotives are burning.

 

The crash produced a fire that created an orange glow that could be seen from the U.S. 78 bridge over Logan Martin Lake in Riverside.

 

Police and rescue workers from multiple cities and counties blocked off the stretch of U.S. 78 between Riverside and Lincoln.

Deborah Gaither, deputy director of the Talladega County Emergency Management Agency, said at 6:15 p.m. that residents within a one-mile radius of the accident scene were being evacuated because one of the cars contained sodium cyanide.

 

Cynide exposure can have a variety of effects ranging from shortness of breath to seizures to coma and death, depending on the level of exposure and form of cyanide.

 

The state’s environmental agency has not detected sodium cyanide in the air, but has called in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do real-time air monitoring, said Jerome Hand, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

 

ADEM was alerted by the Talladega EMA about the sodium cyanide on one of the train cars. Officials had decided Wednesday evening to let the fire burn itself out, he said.

 

Gaither said a shelter was being set up at the new Lincoln High School in Lincoln the Lincoln Methodist Church and the Spring Street Recreational Center.

 

St. Clair County EMA officials were also evacuating some residents in a very small area bordered by the Coosa River, Lock 4 Road, Tomahawk Trail and the Broken Creek.

 

Those residents were being asked to go to shelters in Pell City, said Phil Watson, River Control Specialist for the St. Clair County EMA.

 

Residents of Lomar Villa were being asked to shelter in place. Lackey said residents in Lomar Villa were trapped because there is only one exit from their neighborhood. He said the Talladega EMA contacted residents of the neighborhood by telephone and instructed them on how to protect themselves from the gas.

 

“We’ve talked a lot about getting an escape route,” Lackey said. “Hopefully, this will convince people we’ve got to get an escape route.”

 

Sarah Paxton was at her sister’s mobile home near the site of the crash when it occurred.

 

“It was like a real huge boom,” Paxton said. “We started seeing a really huge plume of thick, black smoke. Then we heard pops, like gunshots.”

 

A short time later, Paxton said emergency vehicles drove through the mobile home park and instructed people to evacuate.

 

Paxton and some other evacuees waited for information at the intersection of U.S. 78 and Talladega County Road 207, where police and rescue workers stopped traffic and waited on more instructions.

 

Mike Cason, Toraine Norris and Katherine Bouma

 

 

Man this is a mess out here, could see the black cloud over my house. Hopefully we will be ok here no word yet.