Waverly tank car explosion
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The Waverly Tank Car Explosion was an explosion that occurred at 2:58 p.m. on Friday February 24, 1978 in Waverly, Tennessee, following a previous rail accident. A tank car containing liquified petroleum gas (LPG) exploded as a result of a derailment earlier in the week. [1] [2]
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[edit] Derailment
At about 10:30 PM on February 22, 24 cars of a Louisville and Nashville Railroad freight train derailed in Waverly's downtown. Initially, local emergency services handled the accident, including inspecting the wreck for any signs of any hazardous material leaks. The responding team assumed the LPG tank car was a double-wall tank car. However it was a single wall tank car.
[edit] Response to derailment
At 5:10 in the morning on February 23 Waverly's fire department. Tennessee's emergency management department (now, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency) sent out a team to assess the situation. They agreed with the fire department and dedicated several streams of water from fire trucks to keep the tank cars cool. The area for a 1/4-mile radius was evacuated, and electrical and gas service to the area shut off.
By this time, Louisville and Nashville wreck crews were hard at work clearing debris. The tank car that would eventually explode, owned by Union Tank Car Company and numbered #83013, was buried by debris. Crews removed the wrecked cars and UTLX 83013 was moved to clear the tracks. The line partially reopened at about 8:00 PM on February 23. A tank truck and a crew specializing in LPG cleanup arrived about 1:00 PM on the 24th. For most of the 22nd and 23rd temperatures stayed cold, in the mid-20s with a bit of snow on the ground.
[edit] Tank car explodes
By mid-day on the 24th the temperatures had risen to the mid-50s, and the sun was out.
About 20 minutes before the removal was to begin, the area was tested with dedicated gas detection equipment and it detected no leaks. The police and fire chiefs were on the scene and the HAZMAT crew was moving its equipment to start the transfer when at 2:58 vapor was noticed leaking from the tank car. Before anything could be done, a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) occurred.
The blast killed six people instantly, including Waverly fire chief Wilbur York, and the blast and fire disabled most of the fire-fighting equipment at the site. The blast was felt for hundreds of feet and seen for miles. One piece of the tank car was launched over 330 feet, landing in front of a house. The blast started numerous fires in nearby buildings, as well as torching cars, other rail cars and even people.
[edit] Response to explosion
Over the next several hours over 250 emergency vehicles converged on the blast site, some from as far as Nashville and Memphis. Air ambulances from Fort Campbell Army Post were dispatched to the site and many of the worst burn victims were moved to Nashville for initial treatment then to burn centers in Louisville, KY, Birmingham, AL and Cincinnati, OH later in the day on the 25th. The evacuation radius was moved out to 1 mile in case a second tanker exploded.
By 7:00 p.m. the fires were under control. 16 buildings were totally destroyed, and a search for casualties was underway quickly. It was called off because of visibility problems, but restarted at 5:30 a.m. on the 25th. A car loaded with paper products reignited at about 3:15 PM on the 25th, but was quickly put out. A second LPG car was emptied by 10:30 that night.
Local residents were allowed to return home at 8:30 a.m. on the 26th.
[edit] Aftermath
Sixteen people died from the blast and from their injuries, including Waverly's Fire and Police chiefs, Tennessee State Investigator Mark Belyew and several L&N wreck crew employees. 43 others were injured to various degrees.
The National Transportation Safety Board eventually blamed the blast on the car itself, as the car had been damaged by the derailment and when crews had tried to remove its contents the pressure in the tank rose, and its single wall gave out. The NTSB commended the Town of Waverly on their preparedness for such an emergency, but also exposed the need for all people involved in accident cleanups to be trained in how to handle hazardous materials.
Sixteen buildings in Waverly were destroyed, and another 20 seriously damaged, with the damage total in 1979 dollars totalling $1.8 Million.
The Waverly blast, along with several other accidents involving railroad derailments and hazardous materials (most famous being the Mississauga train derailment of 1979 in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada on November 10, 1979) resulted in a major rework of how authorities deal with such emergencies. Tennessee created a set of standards for training of accident responders and an institute to train them in 1980, and since the institute's formation there have been no fatalities of Tennessee emergency responders[citation needed].
[edit] References
- ^ Walter Cronkite (1978). Tennessee Tank Car Explosion (VHS tape). Vanderbilt Television News Archive. CBS Evening News. Retrieved on 2006-08-30.
- ^ Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (2002). The Waverly Explosion. Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. Retrieved on 2006-08-30.
