In a terrifying spectacle, a train in central West Virginia has derailed in the middle of a snowstorm, leaking crude oil into the state’s central river and creating a giant, sustained lake fire in the midst of the cold—captured, of course, by residents’ smartphones and quickly posted to Twitter.
http://t.co/f1bbn7Vnbg#TRAIN #DERAILMENT IN WEST VIRGINIA, NEAR MONTGOMERY. CARS ON #FIRE. #EVACUATIONS ORDERED pic.twitter.com/MMAladEPxr
— Marina Smith (@metroforensics1) February 16, 2015
Local news station WOWK reported that Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin had declared a state of emergency in both Fayette and Kanawha Counties and evacuated the tiny towns of Adena Village and Boomer Bottom.
According to the Charleston Gazette, the crash was a 109-car-CSX train carrying crude oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota to a refinery in Virginia. At least one car was reported leaking oil directly into the Kanawha River, and at least one house reportedly caught fire.
New images of the train derailment fireball in West Virginia. http://t.co/e3vOILhqU0 pic.twitter.com/e1lWw8j5XA
— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) February 16, 2015
“I saw a plume, an inferno, a pillar, like something Biblical or wrath-of-God type stuff,” Boomer resident Charles Keenan told the Charleston Daily Mail. “I heard a big boom and a hiss, it was the fuel hissing, and then it went ‘boom,’ and I felt the heat. I was on Route 60, across the river, and I felt the heat and ran because I thought it was going to rain down.”
What an amazing photo by Anne Belmont of Boomer, WVhttp://t.co/xT616IENtF pic.twitter.com/cRlMD2pFhk
— WVVA News (@WVVA) February 16, 2015
Here's a picture from Emily Hypes from Clay that shows before and after of the area near the train derailment. #wsaz pic.twitter.com/ylQHLuXvWZ
— Anna Baxter (@WSAZannabaxter) February 16, 2015
Barely a year earlier, another chemical spill affected the area, when an older Freedom Industries facility leaked the chemical 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol into the Elk River, a tributary of the Kanawha, contaminating the household water supply for some 300,000 West Virginians. Six Freedom Industry employees, including four executives, were indicted for charges stemming from the leak.
There were no reported fatalities from the train derailment, but at least one CSX employee was treated for inhalation-related injury. CSX claimed on its Twitter account that it would put evacuated residents up in hotels for the night.
To put the size of the region’s corresponding snowstorm in perspective, a plow in St. Albans, 40 miles away, had overturned trying to cross railroad tracks.
A plow in St. Albans overturned on railroad tracks at Pennsylvania Ave. If you must go, take it slow! pic.twitter.com/7O7UjBRy9u
— West Virginia 511 (@WV511) February 16, 2015
Photo via WSAZ/Twitter