Train Wreck Victims Pick Up the Pieces

As freight trains resumed rumbling through the City of Commerce on Sunday, most evacuees were able to return to their homes, while about 50 others picked through mountains of debris in search of belongings, two days after a runaway freight train derailed in their neighborhood.

The newly homeless, many of whom have lived in their houses for decades, wondered how they would restore normality to their lives. It has been a dazed weekend of fear and shock. They have had to shuttle between hotels, shop at discount stores for basic clothing and toiletries and eat at local restaurants, their worldly comforts buried beneath tons of mangled freight cars and twisted lumber.

And even though they haven’t had to pay for their food and lodging, the realization that there will be no quick fix to their lives began to settle in, along with anger.

“We’re really, really, really angry and mad,” said Juan Diaz, 40, who won’t be able to return to his job as a tannery worker today because his wife and five children need his help. “My kids were playing in the yard when that happened.”

Shortly after noon on Friday, 31 freight cars broke lose from a Montclair switching and rolled 30 miles, reaching speeds of 75 mph. Union Pacific officials in their San Bernardino dispatch center made the decision to divert them to Commerce before they reached Los Angeles. The cars derailed into the blue-collar neighborhood of houses and apartments. Residents, some in their homes at the time, escaped with minor injuries.

Six houses are uninhabitable, four of them either destroyed or so badly damaged that residents will require long-term housing, John Bromley, a Union Pacific spokesman, said Sunday. Residents were allowed back into 13 other homes. Power and other utilities that had been shut down after the crash were restored to some homes.

Rail safety officials declined to comment on their investigation Sunday. They have said that, once the cars began to pick up speed and roll downhill toward Los Angeles, little could be done to stop the cars safely.

As displaced residents consulted Red Cross shelter coordinators or boarded city shuttles to pick up more supplies at Target, resident Blanca Zendejas returned home Sunday from vacation in Spain. She found her yellow stucco house ripped open at its rear like a shredded pinata. Ribbons of plaster, wiring and insulation hung from the exposed ceiling.

A massive steel train axle had pierced a wall and landed in the living room on a carpet of glass, paper and computer parts. Zendejas, a bookkeeper, has lived and worked in her one-bedroom home on Ferguson Drive for 33 years.

She said she doesn’t know where to start picking up the pieces.

“I had my desk there, my files there. I don’t know where my things are,” she said, pointing at the mess in her living room. “And this is my livelihood. If I don’t work I don’t have money.”

Zendejas owns the property, and also worried about her tenants in two destroyed units.

“I’m not going to rebuild this in two or three months; where are my tenants going to live, where am I going to work? I really don’t know how this whole thing works,” she said.

At the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Commerce Casino, dazed-looking residents sat at coffee tables in the casino’s marble-covered lobby as gamblers played cards nearby. A large statue of charging horses and a chariot towered over their heads, while Target department store bags lay at their feet.

“Most likely we’re not going to have homes to come back to,” said Ramiro Ruiz, 17. He said he didn’t care “how many stars” the hotel had, “I prefer my ... house.”

Piles of Debris

But at home, bulldozers were scooping up thousands of boards that lay strewn over the site. Workers in hardhats picked through scattered piles of debris that stood as tall as 30 feet. Workers plucked out toys, briefcases, personal papers, appliances and other household items and methodically sealed them in plastic bags. The bags were then placed in enormous cardboard boxes with home addresses written on the side.

Commerce Mayor Jesus Cervantes stood at a corner for most of the day, answering questions from curious gawkers. He said the boxes would be taken to a community services building where residents of the affected homes could pick them up. Assistance from the city, Cervantes said, “will be there as long as it’s needed. Union Pacific is going to have to take care of them too.”

Bromley, of Union Pacific, said that the wreckage and debris would be cleaned up by the end of this week and that two of three affected railroad tracks were opened for business Sunday morning. The third track would remain closed until cleanup efforts were completed. The closing should have little effect on commercial and commuter traffic along the corridor, he said. “It’ll be a little of an inconvenience, but the impact on traffic isn’t going to be that great.”

Each day, roughly 2,000 Riverside Line Metrolink commuters roll through the neighborhood. On Sunday, Metrolink spokeswoman Sharon Gavin said service would resume as usual this morning. “There might be some speed restrictions at the scene itself, but it will be minor,” Gavin said.

The expense of lodging residents, feeding them and purchasing sundry items and clothing during their displacement is being covered by Union Pacific. The City of Commerce has paid for some initial expenses, but is being reimbursed by the rail company, according to Bromley and Barbie Bylsma-Houghton, a local shelter manager for the American Red Cross.

Already, the rail company has spent roughly $20,000 for lodging and other expenses, but residents affected by the derailment say that sum is little consolation for the disruption in their lives. They say they are bitter over the company’s decision to derail the train in their neighborhood.

‘Not an Accident’

“Accidents happen, but this was not an accident,” said resident Isela Bonada, 29, who couldn’t return home because hers was one of the few homes without power.

Luz Maria Gonzalez, 38, lived in an apartment building near the tracks with her seven children. She still shudders at the thought of the accident. “I thought it was a strong earthquake,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Gonzalez said she hoped to return home to the apartment soon, but her older children were wary about going back. “My mom still wants to live there,” said daughter Johanna Ponce, 16. “At the Ramada Inn yesterday there were train tracks there and when I heard it go by, I was very scared.”

Bonada stood with her family behind police tape Sunday, surveying damage to their home on Davies Street. Her parents, Fernando, 71, and Consuelo, 68, were allowed in briefly to inspect damage and retrieve possessions, but they cannot move back in because their home lacks power.

The family owns a graphics company in Santa Monica and Isela said she would return to work today while her parents spoke with their lawyer about the damage.

“The next few days, you’ve got to somehow go back to normality,” she said.

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Times staff writer Daniel Hernandez contributed to this report.