WSAZ EXCLUSIVE: Man Whose Home was Destroyed in Train Accident Shares Story
By: Andrew Colegrove, Feb 17, 2015 11:58 PM ET
FAYETTE COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) — The man who lived in the home destroyed in Monday’s train accident and explosions remains very much shaken.
“I barely escaped with my life,” Morris Bounds said.
Bounds says he had just done some cleaning when he heard a loud noise coming from the train tracks.
“I just heard metal banging together,” he said.
He looked out the blinds through his kitchen window up toward the tracks.
“I saw these tanker cars coming over the hill at me,” he said.
The 68-year-old retired machinist with bad knees, who has difficulty walking, says somehow he was able to muster the strength to take off running.
“I made it about 10 feet and heard the house caving in behind me,” he said. “I ran out of the house in my socks in the snow. The house was engulfed in flames.”
Bounds’ daughter and grandchildren had been staying at his home for a couple weeks and had just left the day before the accident.
His wife Patricia was in the hospital for open heart surgery.
He says had they been home, they’d have almost certainly all been killed.
His son Morris Jr. helped build the home 25 years ago.
“It was like a horror movie,” Morris Jr. said when describing what the scene was like when he arrived. “It’s going to be really sad for a while.”
Although he lost everything other than the clothes he was wearing, Bounds says he’s glad the accident happened where it did and not farther up the tracks, where more people could’ve been hurt.
Bounds is staying with his brother for now.
He did have to be treated at the hospital for smoke inhalation.
His wife Patricia is out of the hospital following her surgery, as well.
CSX has said they will fully compensate the Bounds couple.
Repost from MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show [Editor: You have to be patient at the beginning of this report – Rachel will take you through font size in the NYTimes 100 years ago for a pretty good reason. Her sometimes roundabout and always repetitive hype proves to be well worth it. She is one of very few who have reported on – and made understandable – the difference between oil stabilization and oil conditioning. Hang in there…. – RS]
ND oil train safeguards too little, too late
Rachel Maddow and Wall Street Journal senior energy reporter Russell Gold discuss if new oil train safety regulations will be enough to prevent disasters like the derailment in West Virginia yesterday that caused huge explosions.
W.Va. oil train derailment was 1 of 3 with safer tank cars
By John Raby & Jonathan Mattise, Feb 18, 2015, UPDATED Feb 18, 2015 1:33pm ET
A fire burns Monday, Feb. 16, 2015, after a train derailment near Charleston, W.Va. Nearby residents were told to evacuate as state emergency response and environmental officials headed to the scene. THE REGISTER-HERALD, STEVE KEENAN — AP Photo
MOUNT CARBON, W.Va. — The fiery derailment of a train carrying crude oil in West Virginia is one of three in the past year involving tank cars that already meet a higher safety standard than what federal law requires — leading some to suggest even tougher requirements that industry representatives say would be costly.
Hundreds of families were evacuated and nearby water treatment plants were temporarily shut down after cars derailed from a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude Monday, shooting fireballs into the sky, leaking oil into a Kanawha River tributary and burning down a house nearby. It was snowing at the time, but it is not yet clear if weather was a factor.
The fire smoldered for a third day Wednesday. State public safety division spokesman Larry Messina said the fire was 85 percent contained.
The train’s tanks were a newer model — the 1232 — designed during safety upgrades voluntarily adopted by the industry four years ago. The same model spilled oil and caught fire in Timmins, Ontario on Saturday, and last year in Lynchburg, Virginia.
A series of ruptures and fires have prompted the administration of President Barack Obama to consider requiring upgrades such as thicker tanks, shields to prevent tankers from crumpling, rollover protections and electronic brakes that could make cars stop simultaneously, rather than slam into each other.
If approved, increased safety requirements now under White House review would phase out tens of thousands of older tank cars being used to carry highly flammable liquids.
“This accident is another reminder of the need to improve the safety of transporting hazardous materials by rail,” said Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Oil industry officials had been opposed to further upgrading the 1232 cars because of costs. But late last year they changed their position and joined with the railway industry to support some upgrades, although they asked for time to make the improvements.
Oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to more than 435,000 in 2013, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail, according to American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
The downside: Trains hauling Bakken-region oil have been involved in major accidents in Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alabama and Canada, where 47 people were killed by an explosive derailment in 2013 in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
Reports of leaks and other oil releases from tank cars are up as well, from 12 in 2008 to 186 last year, according to Department of Transportation records reviewed by The Associated Press.
Just Saturday — two days before the West Virginia wreck — 29 cars of a 100-car Canadian National Railway train carrying diluted bitumen crude derailed in a remote area 50 miles south of Timmins, Ontario, spilling oil and catching fire. That train was headed from Alberta to Eastern Canada.
The train Monday was bound for an oil shipping depot in Yorktown, Virginia, along the same route where three tanker cars plunged into the James River in Lynchburg, Virginia, prompting an evacuation last year.
The train derailed near unincorporated Mount Carbon just after passing through Montgomery, a town of 1,946, on a stretch where the rails wind past businesses and homes crowded between the water and the steep, tree-covered hills. All but two of the train’s 109 cars were tank cars, and 26 of them left the tracks.
Fire crews had little choice but to let the tanks burn themselves out. Each carried up to 30,000 gallons of crude.
One person — the owner of the destroyed home — was treated for smoke inhalation, but no other injuries were reported, according to the train company, CSX. The two-person crew, an engineer and conductor, managed to decouple the train’s engines from the wreck behind it and walk away unharmed.
The NTSB said its investigators will compare this wreck to others including Lynchburg and one near Casselton, N.D., when a Bakken crude train created a huge fireball that forced the evacuation of the farming town.
No cause has been determined, said CSX regional vice president Randy Cheetham. He said the tracks had been inspected just three days before the wreck.
“They’ll look at train handling, look at the track, look at the cars. But until they get in there and do their investigation, it’s unwise to do any type of speculation,” he said.
By Tuesday evening, power crews were restoring electricity, water treatment plants were going back online, and most of the local residents were back home. Initial tests showed no crude near water plant intake points, state Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kelley Gillenwater said.
State officials do have some say over rail safety.
Railroads are required by federal order to tell state emergency officials where trains carrying Bakken crude are traveling. CSX and other railroads called this information proprietary, but more than 20 states rejected the industry’s argument, informing the public as well as first-responders about the crude moving through their communities.
West Virginia is among those keeping it secret. State officials responded to an AP Freedom of Information request by releasing documents redacted to remove nearly every detail.
There are no plans to reconsider after this latest derailment, said Melissa Cross, a program manager for the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Contributors include Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C.; Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana; and Pam Ramsey in Charleston, West Virginia. Mattise reported from Charleston.
Repost from CBC News [Editor: New details: carrying tar-sands dilbit; 15 cars released crude oil and seven caught fire; responders letting it burn itself out; oil pooling at the frozen headwaters of a small creek; nearby Mattagami First Nation concerned; expect all trees in the surrounding area to be coated with toxins, some die-off; soil contamination a long range cleanup. – RS]
Gogama oil spill raises concerns about environmental damage
Cleanup continues at the site of a CN train derailment about 30 km northwest of Gogama, Ont.
CBC News, Feb 18, 2015 9:27 AM ET, Updated: Feb 18, 2015 11:57 AM ET
Derailed tank cars, Gogama, Ontario. (Transportation Safety Board)
While investigators continue to search for the cause of a CN train Saturday near Gogama, Ont., the environmental impact is becoming more apparent.
Black charred oil tankers lie on their sides in snow stained by crude oil.
CN said the derailed train was carrying diluted bitumen from Alberta to eastern Canada.
Laurentian University professor Charles Ramcharan says that’s one of the worst things that can be spilled.
“The trouble is that it’s very toxic, so if you have a spill it causes a lot of damage and because the bitumen is a solid, it stays on the landscape for a very long time.”
The nearby Mattagami First Nation is also concerned.
Oil is pooling at the frozen headwaters of a small creek near the site of the derailment.
Councillor Jennifer Constant said that waterway leads to her community.
“The impacts may be not immediate, but what are the long-term aspects going to be for people who do utilize the lake and go hunting in the area? They’ve used these lands for time immemorial and they’re worried about the impacts of that,” she said.
“Their health or practices have the potential to be affected by this.”
Contamination, die-off
While CN works with partners to clean up the spill, Ramachran said he worries the incident could fall off the radar because of its remote location.
“Just because there are no immediate human health concerns, I do worry that this one will kind of fall off the radar.”
CN says crews are letting a controlled fire burn out at the site.
Once the dillutants burn off, tar will be left to remove, Ramcharan noted.
He predicted all trees in the surrounding area will be coated with toxins, leading to some die-off. He said the soil will be contaminated as well.
A total of 15 cars released crude oil and seven caught fire when the train went off the tracks late Saturday night.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating a section of broken rail containing a rail joint and a broken wheel.
The director with Transport Action Ontario, an organization that advocates for transportation improvements, said some kind of mechanical failure might be to blame.
“It’s hard to tell,” Dan Hammond said.
“You know, I would like the investigation to take its course on this one. But things like broken wheels, the industry does not like to see.”
CN said both the train and the track passed safety inspections shortly before the derailment.
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