Derailment Aftermath Is Tough on Residents

Railroad crews spent Tuesday carefully unloading hazardous cargo after a freight car derailment near a San Bernardino neighborhood that forced the evacuation of more than 300 residents the night before.

As a precaution, city authorities barred residents of two mobile home parks and a housing tract from returning Tuesday. They may extend the evacuation until Thursday morning to give the city Fire Department and Union Pacific enough time to remove the toxic materials.

More than 200 gallons of a combustible “paint thinner-like” liquid leaked from one of the cargo cars after the derailment, although the leak was quickly plugged and the liquid transferred to another container. No injuries were reported.

Monday night’s accident was the fourth derailment of a Union Pacific train in the past month in Southern California.

“It’s an abnormality,” said Mark Davis, a spokesman for Union Pacific. “Until you find causes of those and can link each one, I think it’s coincidence.”

The cause of the derailment, which damaged 640 feet of track, is still under investigation by Union Pacific and the Federal Railroad Administration, officials said. The track should be cleared and repaired by later this evening, they said.

Thirteen of the 79 cars on the train -- none were engines -- derailed about 8:30 p.m. Monday en route from west Colton to Roseville in Northern California, Davis said. Seven of the derailed cars contained hazardous chemicals, including liquid chlorine, the chemical resembling paint-thinner, fuel additive and plastic pellets, Davis said. The other six cars were empty.

The accident made a “loud, screeching noise -- just thunderous,” said Eric Blose, 32, who was home, near Foothill Boulevard and Meridian Avenue, watching the NCAA basketball championship game.

Blose said his house shook with the impact when the cars jumped the rails and tumbled. San Bernardino police told him to leave immediately, giving him no time to round up his Chihuahua, Princess.

A punctured tank car leaked the paint thinner-like fluid, much of which evaporated before the hole was blocked with wooden plugs, Davis said. The liquid was transferred to tank trucks, and the crews cleaned up the spill area Tuesday. One of the two cars containing chlorine was cracked, and crews were preparing to transfer the liquid to avoid spillage, Davis said.

That process could take 12 to 24 hours, authorities said.

The Fire Department helped coordinate the cleanup effort, and city police handled the evacuation. “Right now, everything is stabilized and under control,” Fire Department spokesman Kevinn Whitaker said Tuesday.

Firefighters were so concerned that wind could carry the fumes toward homes that they ordered the evacuation, Whitaker said.

With chlorine, Whitaker said, “one breath, you go to the hospital; two, you’re dead. It’s that simple.”

Residents should be able to return home safely by midmorning Thursday, he said. “Since we don’t have any leaks, we’re able to use time on our side,” Whitaker said.

A few residents complained of chemical smells or side-effects after the accident.

“It smelled like chlorine, really strong smell. You could taste it in your mouth,” said Tony Lopez, 30. A crew of 125 worked through the night with about a half-dozen pieces of heavy equipment to right the tipped cars splayed across the tracks at the bottom of a ravine.

From 1990 to 2004 across the nation, there were 9,231 train accidents involving hazardous materials, said Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Steve Kulm, and material escaped in 504 of those. Monday’s derailment in San Bernardino forced the diversion of other freight trains to different lines, but it created no serious delays, Davis said.

Like Blose, hundreds of residents were displaced for a night or two, forced to sleep at local motels or relatives’ homes, many with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Some residents stayed put Monday night despite the order to leave, and others said they were never told about an evacuation center established Monday at nearby Arroyo Valley High School.

Catalina Quijada’s family tried half a dozen motels around San Bernardino County before they gave up and returned to sleep in their mobile home in the Meridian Terrace subdivision.

“They don’t want kids,” Quijada said of the motels they tried. “I told them we had to stay, we didn’t have no other place.”

Many, like Quijada’s family, had to miss work or school because of the evacuation. Jose Avila said he missed a day at his job packing motorcycle parts, and his son Daniel was absent from fifth grade.

“I didn’t know it was gonna last this long,” Avila said of the evacuation. “I didn’t take nothing out of the house.”A crowd of several dozen frustrated residents milled outside Meridian Terrace’s front gate for hours as police escorted people three at a time to retrieve medication and clothing and feed pets left behind.

“I didn’t even have time to brush my teeth,” said Donna Davis, 39, who returned to her mobile home to pick up insulin for the diabetic mother of her boyfriend.

Some, like Carolyn Butler and her husband, James, were among the 22 people who spent Monday night on cots in the Red Cross evacuation center at Arroyo Valley High. The Butlers, leaving their neighborhood with fresh clothes and a cellphone charger in hand Tuesday afternoon, were headed to relatives’ in Whittier, leaving their three dogs behind.

“My biggest concern is looting” of the empty neighborhood, said James Butler. Whitaker said police would monitor the neighborhoods to prevent that.

Red Cross volunteers anticipated up to 300 people at the evacuation center Tuesday night, including Zeta and George Begnell.

In spite of back problems, 72-year-old Zeta Begnell slept in her Toyota Camry with her 80-year-old husband after they were evacuated from the Sequoia Plaza mobile home park.

“It’s better to get out of there and tough it out,” Zeta Begnell said from her seat in the bleachers at the Red Cross center.