By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, Dec. 30, a train derailed in Todd County, Ky., that closed a portion of a roadway and necessitated a shelter-in-place order. CSX Transportation, which owns the tracks the train was on, also owns railways in northern Barren County.
Barren County Emergency Management Director Garland Gilliam explained the local procedure should a derailment occur in the county. He said that while derailments are detailed in the county’s emergency operations plan, the necessary steps are determined on a case-by-case basis.
“It’s such a fluid thing, it’s no different than a wreck on the interstate,” Gilliam said. “If a train car flips over that’s got corn in it [then] it’s not a big problem. If a train car flips over that’s got hazardous material [then] we have a protocol on how we handle hazardous situations. So a train derailment is really not different.”
The response would typically be determined by the content of the derailed train, which would be made known through the train’s shipping manifest, Gilliam said.
“The shipping manifest is in the cab [of the train] which can be a mile down the track,” Gilliam said. “So [Deputy Emergency Management Director Marcus Thurman] and I have actually had to walk through the woods a mile to get the papers to find out if it’s a bad deal or not. CSX [personnel] can’t leave the cab.”
Emergency Management’s role would be scene control, Gilliam said, as CSX and the Federal Railway Administration would handle the cleanup. There is also the concept of statewide mutual aid, Gilliam added, which means Barren County Emergency and other county personnel might receive help from Bowling Green, big metropolitans, like Louisville, and/or the state.
If a derailment blocked a roadway, like it did in Todd County, the road department would also be involved, Thurman said.
“We wouldn’t be on an island or anything,” Gilliam said.
In the event of a hazardous situation, Gilliam, Thurman and many in the Glasgow Fire Department have the highest hazardous material training level: the technician level. Volunteer fire departments are required to be at the operations level, which is the second highest level.
The top priority when dealing with a train derailment, or any similar event, is life safety, according to Gilliam.
In Todd County on Tuesday, WEKT reported Hazmat crews out of Hopkinsville worked to put out a fire and dam up an area with dirt to prevent the spread of molten sulfur. The highly toxic substance was one of the items being transported by the train that derailed. That toxic chemical being released led to the shelter-in-place order, which was later lifted. At least 31 cars derailed near the town of Trenton in southern Todd County.
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