Death toll rises to 8 in Graniteville train crash, chemical spill

<p>Margie West was reluctant to leave her cats at home and trade her bed for a cot in a shelter when Aiken County deputies asked her to evacuate her home because it was near the site of a train wreck and chemical spill that had caused eight deaths.</p><p>But when they asked her to give names of next-of-kin to notify in case of her death, she changed her mind. "Well, I have asthma and if anything happened I didn't want to die in the night," West said.</p><p>The air in Graniteville, which is about 11 miles east of Augusta, Ga., remained too dangerous for people nearly 24 hours after a moving Norfolk Southern train crashed into another parked alongside the track early Thursday morning, releasing a yellow cloud of chlorine gas from a busted tanker.</p><p>The toxic cloud killed eight people, including five workers on the night shift at Avondale Mills Inc. plants nearby and forced more than 240 people to seek treatment for respiratory and other ailments.</p><p>Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton identified those on mill property as 43-year-old Willie C. Shealey of Graniteville, 24-year-old John Laird of North Augusta, 41-year-old Rusty Rushton of Warrenville, 58-year-old Allen Frazier of Ridge Spring and 38-year-old Steven Bagby of Augusta, Ga.</p><p>Joseph L. Stone of Quebec, Canada, was found dead in a truck near the plant and Tony DeLoach, 56, was found dead at his home in Graniteville, Carlton said. The engineer, 28-year-old Christopher Seeling of West Columbia died at a hospital. No one was on board the parked train.</p><p>Autopsies are planned Friday, but authorities said all appeared to have died from inhaling the chlorine gas.</p><p>Three cars on the train heading from Augusta, Ga., to Columbia were carrying chlorine. The toxic gas kept investigators from reaching the site Thursday and officials don't know how the two trains ended up on the same track, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said.</p><p>The train wreck is the second in two months in the small textile mill town near the Georgia state line. In November, five people were killed when their car was hit by a train at a rail crossing.</p><p>The Aiken County Council sought to lower the speed limit from 49 mph for trains in the area, but the limit is set by the federal government said U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., who was touring shelters in the area Thursday night. "It's something we need to take a look at," Barrett said.</p><p>Gov. Mark Sanford declared a state of emergency for the county, activating the State Emergency Operations Center and making state resources available.</p><p>The leak had slowed considerably Thursday night as Norfolk Southern workers prepared to remove rail cars from the track, said state Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesman Thom Berry.</p><p>There were at least three hazardous chemicals on the train, Berry said, but officials were most concerned about the chlorine gas, which affects respiratory and central nervous systems. It can damage the throat, nose, eyes and can cause death.</p><p>Most of the 5,400 residents living within one mile of the site were evacuated about 12 hours after the 2:40 a.m. wreck. Until then, residents had been told by authorities to stay inside homes and turn their ventilation systems off. About a dozen people refused to evacuate, but Berry said he did not expect them to be in danger overnight.</p><p>By the time the evacuation order was issued, some had already experienced the skin- and eye-burning sensations associated with chlorine contact.</p><p>Cindy Britt, 39, said her throat had begun feeling clogged early in the day, and it took little convincing from deputies to get her out of her home. She sat Thursday in donated clothes on a blue cot in a makeshift shelter at the University of South Carolina-Aiken. She had turned the clothes and shoes she was wearing in to authorities.</p><p>"She forced me out," said Cindy's husband Randy Britt. "I was just going to shut the car in the garage and watch TV."</p><p>Still, Britt said he's no stranger to the danger of chlorine gas. Once while working at an Avondale Mills plant as a mechanic, he jumped into a canal to escape gas leaking from a burst tank.</p><p>And though he said he would have felt safe at home, Britt asked deputies to evacuate his 73-year-old neighbor Ruth Pou who was shut inside and not answering knocks at her door.</p>

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