Chlorine Accident at Graniteville, SC

From Walt, in Aiken, SC:

You’ve probably seen the news story about the train wreck at Graniteville, South Carolina last Thursday (January 6), which killed 9, injured several hundred, and forced the evacuation of 5400 people. The wreck occurred 6 miles from our house.

Graniteville is a small town very close to Aiken; there is only about 1 mile of undeveloped land between the two municipalities. Looking at a map, one would be tempted to call Graniteville a suburb of Aiken. However, it has an independent history, and it is very different from Aiken. Aiken was a vacation resort for much of its history, but Graniteville was and is a company town, built to support the Avondale textile mill. About half of the acreage of Graniteville is given over to a sprawling complex of textile factories owned by the Avondale Company, which makes denim. Surrounding and between the factories are neighborhoods of shotgun houses and other small dwellings; mostly about 100 years old, and perhaps 800 square feet in size. The place reminds me of Albuquerque’s barrio; however, its inhabitants are mostly low-income whites – pizza delivery guys, etc. I walk my dog Maggie over there sometimes, because they have a canal dating from 1845, and many of the small yards have dogs who Maggie can meet.

At 2:40am on Thursday, a 42-car freight train traveling 49 mph collided with a parked train on a siding. It appears that the parked train’s crew failed to set the switch correctly. Several cars carrying chemicals ruptured, including a tanker with 90 tons of liquefied chlorine. The cloud surrounded a textile factory with about 30 people working the night shift, and entered the plant’s ventilation system. The factory has a real fast ventilation system because they use a lot of flammable and toxic solvents. About two dozen Avondale employees ran through the cloud to their cars, but 6 employees didn’t make it and died at the scene, including the supervisor who stayed to see everybody out and to shut off the machines. Three others were killed: a truck driver sleeping in his cab, a guy in a neighboring house, and the train engineer. About 300 people sought medical treatment, about 5 of whom remain in critical condition today. Five thousand were evacuated; many were not able to take their clothes, medicines, or pets. Observers in helicopters could see lots of dead dogs in the yards. As of today – Monday night, 4 days later, residents have not yet returned to their homes. The coal supply in the Avondale boilerhouse caught fire; yesterday it had not yet been brought under control – chlorine supports combustion.

In addition to killing and hurting people and animals, the chlorine also corroded everything exposed to it. Survivors say their wedding rings turned black as they ran through the cloud. The Graniteville Fire Department got their trucks corroded and trashed from the fumes. I imagine many of the residents got their vehicles & houses messed up.

It seems that the Norfolk & Southern railroad is completely at fault here. Just two months ago, five Avondale employees were killed trying to beat a train to the crossing, only two blocks from where last week’s accident occurred. After that incident –even though it was the car driver’s fault – the county government tried to get the railroad to slow their trains down from 50 mph to 25 mph when going through Graniteville. As you might imagine in a 150-year old mill town, buildings sit very close to each other, and close to the railroad too. The railroad declined to slow the trains down, saying “We have not received any request to slow down”; a perhaps contemptuous response.

This time, only two months later, one would hope that the railroad would be generous to the impacted population. So they offered $300 checks to the evacuated people – most of whom are low-income and who live from paycheck to paycheck. The checks had a printed section saying that by signing the check, the payee waives any additional compensation claims against Norfolk & Southern deriving from the accident in Graniteville on 1/6/05. How nice of them.

Marc's Reply:

Here are some descriptions of the Graniteville accident.

Railroads have been sneakier of late regarding safety issues. Unfortunately the NY Times charges for this stuff, but here is one cost-free version of a recent article, plus part of the three-part series last July, where Bogdanich from the NY Times went after Union Pacific:

Back in 1989-1990, for a U of U fog-seeding project, I visited the Salt Lake City Sewage Treatment Plant on a regular basis. I remember the care they took with chlorine safety. They explained that if the alarms ever sounded, we were to run like bats out of hell, and don't dare breathe and don't dare stop. That always worried me, especially if exits were blocked, or if the wind wasn't favorable. Plus all those folks in the Jordan River Valley below!

This sounds like a worst-case calamity. Poor nighttime dispersion. Many people nearby asleep or in an inconvenient position to flee. No applicable safety drill. Large amount of chlorine. Best for the affected folks NOT to cash those checks, and instead file lawsuits. What a calamity!