Railroad Hazardous Material
Training and Exercise in Rose Hill
"A tank car filled with fuming sulfuric acid lost a portion of its wheel housing and derailed just west of downtown Rose Hill Saturday. Responders were quickly engaged in protective actions to mitigate the fumes as well as rescuing a mother and child whose car was hit by the wheel housing as the train passed through the city. The county’s Reverse 9-1-1 system was put into action notifying homes and businesses within a half-mile radius of the site to shelter-in-place until the danger passed."
Sounds pretty dramatic, doesn’t it?
In all actuality, the scenario was the culmination of a training event held by the Butler County Local Emergency Planning Committee, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Emergency Management/Homeland Security and Fire District #3. Training was held at the new fire station in Rose Hill on Friday, April 2nd. Classroom and hands-on training was provided by Brock Lowman, Manager HazMat Program and Community Relations, and Ron Malleck, Manager Environmental Operations with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe provided the use of the TransCAER (Transportation Community Awareness Emergency Response), which is an actual tank car sponsored by Chevron. The TransCAER provides "hands-on" opportunities for attendees to become familiar with the working parts of a tank car in the event a rail accident occurs. The tank car became the "star" of the exercise on Saturday, April 3rd when the class attendees responded to the accident scene.
The exercise, which began at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, utilized 47 representatives from the following agencies:
Fire District #3 (Rose Hill) Andover Fire/Rescue
Emergency Management Local Emergency Planning Committee
Butler County EMS Rose Hill Police Department
Butler County Sheriff Retired Senior Volunteer Program
Fire District #7 (Benton) Towanda Fire Department
Burlington Northern Santa Fe HazMat Response, Inc.
Butler County Communications National Weather Service - Wichita
While emergency responders worked on the rescue and response portion of the exercise, volunteers from Emergency Management and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program went door-to-door north of the scene handing out information on the drill, Reverse 9-1-1 and how to shelter-in-place.
Chris Davis, Director of Butler County Communications, reported that 368 phone numbers were successfully reached by the Reverse 9-1-1 System in approximately 45 minutes.
Following the exercise, which ended at 10:30 a.m., a critique was held in the training room of the fire station in Rose Hill.
This marks the third time BNSF has held railroad hazardous material training in Butler County within the last two years. Similar training and exercises were held in July 2002 in the cities of El Dorado and Augusta.
Every agency that has participated in the training has expressed their enthusiasm for the excellent course and the chance to utilize the TransCAER both for training and exercise experience.
We are grateful for the efforts of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Mr. Lowman and Mr. Malleck who have given unselfishly of their time and talents to assist our emergency agencies in their goal of safety for our citizens and our emergency responders.
For more information on hazardous material safety or on sheltering-in-place, contact your local fire department or the Local Emergency Planning Committee at 733-9796. For more information on Reverse 9-1-1, contact Butler County Emergency Communications at 1-800-822-5306.
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