Experts: Rescuers Could Do Little to Save More Lives in South Carolina Toxic Spill

GRANITEVILLE, S.C. (AP) -- Even if rescuers had been prepared for the toxic gas leak from a train wreck here in January, there would have been little they could have done to save the nine people who died, experts said.

''Most American communities are not prepared to deal with these types of releases,'' because they don't know what the trains are carrying, said Fred Millar, a Washington, D.C.-based expert on the transportation of hazardous materials.

Eight of the nine victims of the Graniteville crash died within the first hour after a Norfolk Southern train was diverted onto a side rail and crashed into parked railroad cars. The crash released a deadly cloud of chlorine gas that pooled in the low-lying area. The ninth victim, the train's engineer, died the next day in a hospital.

Those who ran to high ground survived; those who ran away from the crash, but toward low-lying areas didn't, The (Columbia) State newspaper reported Sunday.

''It was like pouring poison in an ant hill,'' said Phil Napier, chief of the Graniteville Fire Department. ''People didn't know what to do.''

After-action reports from the Aiken County Sheriff's Office and other responding agencies are not complete, in part because they are awaiting a federal coordinator's assessment, Sheriff Michael Hunt told the newspaper.

People who reviewed the accident said lives could have been saved only if the crash hadn't happened, but most of them also agreed that the death toll could have been much higher, the paper reported.

''It's a miracle more lives weren't lost,'' Napier said. ''At another time, at that same location, with those variables changed, this could have been (a) horrific incident of unimaginable magnitude.''

But the accident showed the vulnerability of communities like Graniteville, mainly because rescuers didn't know what they were dealing with until it was too late.

Telling rescue workers ahead of time what is on trains rolling through their towns and counties could make the most difference, Millar said. ''You give communities the worse-case scenarios and let them decide how to prepare,'' he said.

Railroads are the only industry not required by the federal government to report to local emergency preparedness agencies what chemicals they are handling.

In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Conference of Mayors asked the agency to ''take immediate action with the freight railroads'' to improve notice about hazardous materials.

Members of the Graniteville-Vaucluse-Warrenville Fire Department were first on the scene, but weren't wearing hazardous material suits and had little training for dealing with the spill. Napier was overcome trying to reach the department's main headquarters, which was inside the deadly cloud.

The mill had no plan for dealing with such a disaster and part of the plant's emergency plan was for workers to leave. ''But the danger was also outside the plant,'' said Stephen Felker Jr., Avondale's manager of corporate development. ''People had to improvise. A lot of people showed leadership.''

One problem came with determining who was in charge.

''There was a little bit of head-butting to begin with,'' said Savannah River Site firefighter Kevin Faircloth. ''But they worked it out fairly well.''

Napier wanted an immediate evacuation. Hunt wanted to better assess the situation. The first warnings that went out -- nearly two hours after the crash -- advised two different courses of action.

The State Emergency Preparedness Division issued news releases just after 5 a.m. advising residents to evacuate. An hour and a half later, Aiken County sent out a ''reverse 911'' call to 3,600 homes, advising them to stay put.

''It was chaotic,'' said Sgt. Charles Barranco, special operations chief for the Aiken Department of Public Safety, a city agency.

Sheriff Hunt said ''shelter in place'' was the proper response, but experts question whether any option could have saved lives in that first hour.

'' 'Shelter-in-place' is the appropriate response, but it can also mean die in your home,'' safety consultant Millar said. ''More might have died if they would have stayed rather than run.''

Napier said officials ''were damned if you do and damned if you don't. It was a Catch-22.''

When trained and equipped rescuers got the scene between 4:30 and 5 a.m., they began looking for survivors.

Kenny Bellinger watched two of his co-workers die in the break room of the Gregg plant as he waited four hours for rescuers.

''You couldn't stand it if you didn't have anything over your face,'' Bellinger told The State. ''I was asking God for another chance. ... I had a lot of stuff I wanted to do with my kids that I didn't have a chance to do and (to) please send somebody to come for us.''

By then, the gas had largely dissipated.

Twelve hours after the derailment, 5,400 people within one mile of the crash site were ordered evacuated for a week to protect against the possibility of a secondary spill as the crash site was cleaned up. ''It was an abundance of caution,'' said sheriff's spokesman Lt. Michael Frank.

But experts said the caution would have paid more dividends on the front end.

Computerized train signals, for example, could have warned the crew the track switch was in the wrong position. Slower train speeds could have given the crew more time to react. After the accident, Norfolk Southern slowed its trains to 25 mph from 49 mph.

''It's sad that it takes a tragedy like this to make us more aware,'' Napier said. ''But we're going to do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen again.''

Information from: The State