For Firefighters, Responding To Train Derailments Is About Being Ready
March 8, 2023 at 11:50 p.m.
By David [email protected]
That derailment was followed by a Feb. 28 incident in Greece where 57 died and over 80 people were injured, and a March 4 derailment in Springfield, Ohio, where a Norfolk Southern train’s 28 cars were sent across the tracks.
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Assistant Chief of Operations Aaron Bolinger talked about being ready locally for a train derailment.
Hazmat Training
“So, when you think about a plan, do we have a book that sits on the shelf that says, ‘In Case of A Train Derailment, We Do This’? No, you don’t. The guys daily work on preparing for anything, really,” he said.
If a train derails, the first thing likely to happen is someone will call 911 and they will dispatch the fire department. They may not have any more information than it’s a train derailment.
“So when they start heading to a train derailment, they rely on their hazmat training. There’s three levels of hazmat training: Awareness level, which they go, ‘Oh, this is a hazmat run, we need to call somebody who knows what to do.’ There’s an operational hazmat person that they’re going to do damning, diking and diverting - that’s what it’s called. They’re going to put booms out to make sure it doesn’t go very far. And then there’s a technician level, which now those people, with the right equipment, can go start taking care of the issue. They can offensively work on the issue. They can hopefully stop leaks, maybe tighten a cap or do things like that, that’s what a technician is able to do,” Bolinger explained.
Currently, the city of Warsaw has about 20 technicians. The one thing it doesn’t have is a lot of that equipment that goes into it, such as the specialized suits.
“We’re working on re-establishing that capability, but right now we work in conjunction with Elkhart and Goshen,” Bolinger said.
Kosciusko County is part of Public Health Preparedness District 2, which also includes St. Joseph, Elkhart, Marshall, Starke, Pulaski and Fulton counties. Bolinger said WWFT works closer with Elkhart and Goshen because of their physical location. Elkhart has a technician team with technician equipment, which is why they often respond to unique runs in Kosciusko.
“Again, we have people that can assist in that, it’s a lot of that specialized equipment that we don’t have to take care of issues,” he said.
Back in the 1990s, Warsaw and Kosciusko County had a hazmat team, but when people retired and left, “we never received that training to keep it going. So that’s what we’re trying to do, is re-establish that program,” he said.
Collecting Info
In a train crash, information is collected so the best decisions can be made.
“So the guys are going to respond - OK, this is a train crash - so they know the first thing that they do is they’re going to stage upwind and uphill, so they don’t get into any vapors, anything running down the road. And now they’re going to start taking a look at this and deciding, ‘Do we evacuate the neighborhoods? What do we do?’ You’ve got to remember, at the best day there’s only 13 of us here, so that makes it kind of difficult, but that’s where we’re going to use police, county sheriff, mutual aid fire departments to help us build that out and do the evacuation,” Bolinger stated.
At the same time, the battalion chief will probably be getting in contact with dispatch to have them get in touch with Elkhart’s hazmat team and have them heading toward the derailment.
“And, so, now the battalion chief is setting up the incident command system, so everybody is going to have one person to answer back to on, ‘What do we need to do next?’, ‘How are we doing this?’, ‘What are we doing?’” he said.
One of the things they will try to do is get the train consist, which tells what all those tankers on the train are, where they are in the line and what they are.
“Your train cars are all going to be in a pile. But what they’ll do is, they’ll look at this consist and they’ll say, ‘OK, here’s one that is hazardous.’ And they’ll start breaking these hazards down: OK, this train car has this, this has this. Which one is the worst? We need to find out which one is the worst and start working backwards. If this one has horrible, terrible stuff in it versus there’s grain in this (other) car - well, the grain one, that’s not much of a big deal to us. We’re going to worry about this one (with the terrible stuff). So, is this one leaking? Is that a hazard? If it’s not, we’ll go to the next one. Is this a hazard? No, it’s not. Is this one? And what you’ll do is, you’ll just keep following that down,” Bolinger said.
If they get to a car with a leak, the next step will be to determine what the chemical is, its properties and what its dangers are.
“They’ll start looking at, is it a vapor when it gets outside? Does it stay a liquid? And then they’ll start looking at vapor densities and specific gravities: Does it float in air or does it sink in air? Does it float on water or does it sink in water?” he said.
Then they’ll decide if they’ll use booms to collect it if it’s on top of water, or who to evacuate first. If they’re evacuating people, the people will need a place to go. If there’s a gas or a vapor, residents will need evacuated. If something is on fire, they will need evacuated. The American Red Cross will help place evacuees in a shelter.
A book the first responders use to help make decisions is the Emergency Response Guidebook. It provides a list of chemicals.
“Anytime you see a train car and it’s got four numbers on it, or a semi trailer, what they do is they come here to these ID numbers and it has those four-digit numbers that we can look for,” Bolinger explained. “So if you see something that is a 1192, it’s an ethyl lactate. So what they do is, once they see this, they get a guide number, which is 129. So they go to the orange pages. And at 129, the first thing we have to worry about is fire and explosion.”
The guide number tells what the dangers are for the chemical, starting out with the most severe danger. “It’s a great little resource here,” he said. The guidebook, which is a quick reference, also will suggest how far to evacuate people.
“Now, as they start finding chemicals, then they can go to something like this, which is the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards,” Bolinger said.
The NIOSH guide gets into some of the numbers for the chemicals, like its boiling point.
“So this is a lot of trying to figure out what we are dealing with. And then we have a program that’s on the iPads in the engine that ... OK, here’s 15 terrible chemicals. We can put all 15 chemicals in there and it will tell us if chemical 1 and 7 get together, this is bad news. If 8 and 3 get together, oh my gosh! type of stuff,” he said.
Another thing they will try to do, as dealing with the train derailment will last a while, will be to call an Incident Management Team to come help.
“Because now we’re going to take this scene and we know it’s going to go on for possibly days and we’re going to split it into operational periods. Two 12-hour periods in a day, there’ll be a daytime and nighttime operational period, and that command team will help us set objectives,” Bolinger said.
The unified command team will include representatives of the fire department, train company and different response organizations.
Local Incidents
Three sets of railroad tracks cross Kosciusko County east-west, with a north-south set of tracks intersecting them at Claypool, Warsaw and just north of Milford.
Along the north-south rail line that cuts through Warsaw, Bolinger pointed out that there’s restaurants, manufacturing and residences like Little Crow Lofts.
“So that might not be just a hazmat incident. Let’s say two or three of those railcars end up in Little Crow Lofts. Now you have rescue services where you have to shore up the building and do things like that, that we would be calling in extra help, more of the District 2 assets that we have,” he said.
Most people would be blown away by how many train derailments there are, he said.
Locally, in May 2018, a CSX train derailed just east of CR 300W, north of CR 1350N, and west of Milford, with two crew members taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Several railroad crossings in downtown Warsaw were closed March 2, 2018, after a minor train derailment. No injuries were reported and no chemicals were spilled in a train derailment in South Whitley May 23, 2016.
“Train derailments are actually a pretty common thing,” Bolinger said. “We deal with more hazmat incidents on (U.S.) 30 than we’ve ever done with a train,” Bolinger said.
The last derailment he could remember off hand was a couple years ago on the east-west track near Winona Avenue, behind the U-Store-It buildings, where four or five cars came off the tracks and the tracks got a little messed up. The railroad crew quickly got the train and tracks back up and going.
Hazmat Billing & Be Prepared
If a train, semi or business has a chemical spill, the WWFT will bill them and collect those funds for its hazmat program.
“They get billed for what we do as far as cleaning up - the floor dry that we use, the booms that we use, for people on scene, they are sent a bill and through that bill, those funds can only be used for hazmat training and equipment,” Bolinger said. “So, they have a huge stake in it because they are responsible for everything, the train company is. They’re responsible to make everyone whole again.”
The best thing the public can do to be prepared for an emergency, whether it’s a train derailment, tornado or snow storm?
“Have supplies for at least three days. Have enough food and water to sustain yourself for at least three days,” Bolinger recommended. Also, he suggested, have homeowners or renter’s insurance.
“Be prepared. Don’t expect someone else to come and help you. Take care of yourself. Have those things ready and ready to go out the door if you need to.”
That derailment was followed by a Feb. 28 incident in Greece where 57 died and over 80 people were injured, and a March 4 derailment in Springfield, Ohio, where a Norfolk Southern train’s 28 cars were sent across the tracks.
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Assistant Chief of Operations Aaron Bolinger talked about being ready locally for a train derailment.
Hazmat Training
“So, when you think about a plan, do we have a book that sits on the shelf that says, ‘In Case of A Train Derailment, We Do This’? No, you don’t. The guys daily work on preparing for anything, really,” he said.
If a train derails, the first thing likely to happen is someone will call 911 and they will dispatch the fire department. They may not have any more information than it’s a train derailment.
“So when they start heading to a train derailment, they rely on their hazmat training. There’s three levels of hazmat training: Awareness level, which they go, ‘Oh, this is a hazmat run, we need to call somebody who knows what to do.’ There’s an operational hazmat person that they’re going to do damning, diking and diverting - that’s what it’s called. They’re going to put booms out to make sure it doesn’t go very far. And then there’s a technician level, which now those people, with the right equipment, can go start taking care of the issue. They can offensively work on the issue. They can hopefully stop leaks, maybe tighten a cap or do things like that, that’s what a technician is able to do,” Bolinger explained.
Currently, the city of Warsaw has about 20 technicians. The one thing it doesn’t have is a lot of that equipment that goes into it, such as the specialized suits.
“We’re working on re-establishing that capability, but right now we work in conjunction with Elkhart and Goshen,” Bolinger said.
Kosciusko County is part of Public Health Preparedness District 2, which also includes St. Joseph, Elkhart, Marshall, Starke, Pulaski and Fulton counties. Bolinger said WWFT works closer with Elkhart and Goshen because of their physical location. Elkhart has a technician team with technician equipment, which is why they often respond to unique runs in Kosciusko.
“Again, we have people that can assist in that, it’s a lot of that specialized equipment that we don’t have to take care of issues,” he said.
Back in the 1990s, Warsaw and Kosciusko County had a hazmat team, but when people retired and left, “we never received that training to keep it going. So that’s what we’re trying to do, is re-establish that program,” he said.
Collecting Info
In a train crash, information is collected so the best decisions can be made.
“So the guys are going to respond - OK, this is a train crash - so they know the first thing that they do is they’re going to stage upwind and uphill, so they don’t get into any vapors, anything running down the road. And now they’re going to start taking a look at this and deciding, ‘Do we evacuate the neighborhoods? What do we do?’ You’ve got to remember, at the best day there’s only 13 of us here, so that makes it kind of difficult, but that’s where we’re going to use police, county sheriff, mutual aid fire departments to help us build that out and do the evacuation,” Bolinger stated.
At the same time, the battalion chief will probably be getting in contact with dispatch to have them get in touch with Elkhart’s hazmat team and have them heading toward the derailment.
“And, so, now the battalion chief is setting up the incident command system, so everybody is going to have one person to answer back to on, ‘What do we need to do next?’, ‘How are we doing this?’, ‘What are we doing?’” he said.
One of the things they will try to do is get the train consist, which tells what all those tankers on the train are, where they are in the line and what they are.
“Your train cars are all going to be in a pile. But what they’ll do is, they’ll look at this consist and they’ll say, ‘OK, here’s one that is hazardous.’ And they’ll start breaking these hazards down: OK, this train car has this, this has this. Which one is the worst? We need to find out which one is the worst and start working backwards. If this one has horrible, terrible stuff in it versus there’s grain in this (other) car - well, the grain one, that’s not much of a big deal to us. We’re going to worry about this one (with the terrible stuff). So, is this one leaking? Is that a hazard? If it’s not, we’ll go to the next one. Is this a hazard? No, it’s not. Is this one? And what you’ll do is, you’ll just keep following that down,” Bolinger said.
If they get to a car with a leak, the next step will be to determine what the chemical is, its properties and what its dangers are.
“They’ll start looking at, is it a vapor when it gets outside? Does it stay a liquid? And then they’ll start looking at vapor densities and specific gravities: Does it float in air or does it sink in air? Does it float on water or does it sink in water?” he said.
Then they’ll decide if they’ll use booms to collect it if it’s on top of water, or who to evacuate first. If they’re evacuating people, the people will need a place to go. If there’s a gas or a vapor, residents will need evacuated. If something is on fire, they will need evacuated. The American Red Cross will help place evacuees in a shelter.
A book the first responders use to help make decisions is the Emergency Response Guidebook. It provides a list of chemicals.
“Anytime you see a train car and it’s got four numbers on it, or a semi trailer, what they do is they come here to these ID numbers and it has those four-digit numbers that we can look for,” Bolinger explained. “So if you see something that is a 1192, it’s an ethyl lactate. So what they do is, once they see this, they get a guide number, which is 129. So they go to the orange pages. And at 129, the first thing we have to worry about is fire and explosion.”
The guide number tells what the dangers are for the chemical, starting out with the most severe danger. “It’s a great little resource here,” he said. The guidebook, which is a quick reference, also will suggest how far to evacuate people.
“Now, as they start finding chemicals, then they can go to something like this, which is the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards,” Bolinger said.
The NIOSH guide gets into some of the numbers for the chemicals, like its boiling point.
“So this is a lot of trying to figure out what we are dealing with. And then we have a program that’s on the iPads in the engine that ... OK, here’s 15 terrible chemicals. We can put all 15 chemicals in there and it will tell us if chemical 1 and 7 get together, this is bad news. If 8 and 3 get together, oh my gosh! type of stuff,” he said.
Another thing they will try to do, as dealing with the train derailment will last a while, will be to call an Incident Management Team to come help.
“Because now we’re going to take this scene and we know it’s going to go on for possibly days and we’re going to split it into operational periods. Two 12-hour periods in a day, there’ll be a daytime and nighttime operational period, and that command team will help us set objectives,” Bolinger said.
The unified command team will include representatives of the fire department, train company and different response organizations.
Local Incidents
Three sets of railroad tracks cross Kosciusko County east-west, with a north-south set of tracks intersecting them at Claypool, Warsaw and just north of Milford.
Along the north-south rail line that cuts through Warsaw, Bolinger pointed out that there’s restaurants, manufacturing and residences like Little Crow Lofts.
“So that might not be just a hazmat incident. Let’s say two or three of those railcars end up in Little Crow Lofts. Now you have rescue services where you have to shore up the building and do things like that, that we would be calling in extra help, more of the District 2 assets that we have,” he said.
Most people would be blown away by how many train derailments there are, he said.
Locally, in May 2018, a CSX train derailed just east of CR 300W, north of CR 1350N, and west of Milford, with two crew members taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Several railroad crossings in downtown Warsaw were closed March 2, 2018, after a minor train derailment. No injuries were reported and no chemicals were spilled in a train derailment in South Whitley May 23, 2016.
“Train derailments are actually a pretty common thing,” Bolinger said. “We deal with more hazmat incidents on (U.S.) 30 than we’ve ever done with a train,” Bolinger said.
The last derailment he could remember off hand was a couple years ago on the east-west track near Winona Avenue, behind the U-Store-It buildings, where four or five cars came off the tracks and the tracks got a little messed up. The railroad crew quickly got the train and tracks back up and going.
Hazmat Billing & Be Prepared
If a train, semi or business has a chemical spill, the WWFT will bill them and collect those funds for its hazmat program.
“They get billed for what we do as far as cleaning up - the floor dry that we use, the booms that we use, for people on scene, they are sent a bill and through that bill, those funds can only be used for hazmat training and equipment,” Bolinger said. “So, they have a huge stake in it because they are responsible for everything, the train company is. They’re responsible to make everyone whole again.”
The best thing the public can do to be prepared for an emergency, whether it’s a train derailment, tornado or snow storm?
“Have supplies for at least three days. Have enough food and water to sustain yourself for at least three days,” Bolinger recommended. Also, he suggested, have homeowners or renter’s insurance.
“Be prepared. Don’t expect someone else to come and help you. Take care of yourself. Have those things ready and ready to go out the door if you need to.”
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