Editor's Note: This story was originally published on Jan. 6, 2020.
The nine lives lost is the first thing Aiken County Sheriff Michael Hunt thinks of when he remembers the deadly train derailment in Graniteville, which happened in the early morning 16 years ago today.
At 2:39 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2005, a Norfolk Southern two-engine, 42-car train veered onto a spur line and slammed into a locomotive tied down on a side track, derailing 14 cars in the heart of Graniteville just outside one of the Avondale Mills textile plants.
The impact ruptured one of the freight train's tank cars – loaded with 90 tons of chlorine – releasing a geyser of about 60 tons of the pressurized liquid gas on a mild winter's morning.
The wreck, the result of an improperly aligned switch, claimed the lives of nine victims and displaced more than 5,000 Graniteville residents for days.
“They were local families,” Hunt said Friday, remembering the derailment and its effect on the Graniteville community. “Some of them we were familiar with, so I think the loss of life is the first thing that comes to mind. It’s just sad we lost citizens, and our thoughts and prayers go with them today.”
Aiken Department of Public Safety Chief Charles Barranco, who was part of Public Safety's special services division 16 years ago, also remembered the nine victims and how the derailment affected local businesses and people's livelihood. The corrosive damage to industrial machinery caused by the wreck led to the eventual closing of the Avondale Mills, the former Graniteville Company, and to the loss of jobs.
Barranco said he also remembers the “cooperative efforts” of the local emergency and medical agencies that responded to the derailment.
“That was a major operation and one of the things that I find I’m most proud of,” Barranco said. “We responded into the area not knowing what to expect. We were able to successfully evacuate some folks out of their houses and have shelters in place.”
“It really wasn’t a question of who was in charge,” Barranco continued. “It was something that just came together, not just the local agencies but state, federal and other agencies across the state and in Georgia to help respond. We evacuated a lot of people that evening. It was a proud day to be a first responder.”
Barranco said he also remembers the smell that evening.
“The chlorine was pretty potent,” he said.
Troy Smith worked in the Gregg Plant at Avondale Mills about 150 yards from the wreck. He, too, remembered the smell.
“If you can imagine, it was literally like sticking your head into a bottle of bleach. It burned your eyes. It hurt to breathe,” Smith said in a story in the Aiken Standard in January 2015 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the derailment.
Although the chlorine smell was stronger than normal, it wasn’t unusual, Smith said. Gregg was a textile dyeing and finishing plant and used lots of chemicals to treat cloth.
“We worked with bleach and enzymes and had bleach ranges where we actually bleached the cloth white,” Troy said. “When we started smelling the bleach, we thought we had a ruptured pipe. So, instead of trying to get away from the smell, we were actually going to the part of the plant where it smelled the worst to try to find it. It was probably 30 to 45 minutes after the train wreck before we realized it was something that had happened outside the plant.”
Smith remained to help his co-workers evacuate the plant and was one of the last to leave the building but passed out from the chlorine fumes in the parking lot.
Smith, who didn't remember being rescued, was taken first to a fire station and then to Aiken Regional Medical Centers, where he was treated for “chemical burns all the way down into my lungs” and damaged tear ducts.
At a public meeting in March 2019 at Aiken Technical College, Dr. John E. Vena, the chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, outlined some of the results of health studies conducted on people exposed to the chlorine leak.
Chlorine was not identified as the toxin for almost an hour after the wreck, he said.
Lung function dropped significantly, and the chlorine exposure caused damage to the lungs, Vena said. Chlorine exposure led to increased blood pressure. Victims also experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, and females in particular exhibited a tendency to panic.
Vena said people affected by the chlorine leak still need primary care and continued assessment.
“That means continued support for their pulmonary health, blood pressure testing and long-term impacts on cardiovascular disease,” he said. “That means that in Graniteville there is a need for primary care with the knowledge that these folks were exposed in the past.”
In addition to the nine people who died, 15 were in ICUs at local hospitals for more than two days; 72 people were hospitalized; 851 were treated; and more than 7,000 people were told to shelter in place, Vena said.
Hunt said it's important to remember the train derailment, the nine men who died and its impact on Graniteville and its residents 15 years later.
“I think any tragedy we cannot forget,” he said. “Our community went through a lot. We lost citizens, and we evacuated about 5,700 folks who stayed out of their houses for quite some time. It was a major event for this community, and we can’t forget what this community went through or the citizens that we lost.”
Matthew Enfinger contributed to this story.
