Derailed Propane Car In Neighborhood

[themartianchick]

Around 2:45 today, I heard a lot of sirens. I had a lot going on at the time...My disabled nephew was here. I was cooking dinner and my tv was blasting Spongebob to keep him entertained. I missed hearing my cell phone ring...twice. Ten minutes later, my brother in law called a third time to ask me to see what was going on on a specific street. I logged onto the net to find that a train de-railed (not at all far away) and that one of the cars had rolled over and it was a propane tanker. The gas is odorless so at first they didn't know if there were any leaks. Brother in law called back to say that they were evacuating the area and they shut down the highway in both directions. I am about the equivalent of 3 short city blocks away.

 

I immediately grabbed the BOB and collected a few other things together. I called each daughter and hubby to warn them and ask if there was anything else that they would want or need. I placed it all by the door. I called hubby back again to tell him to come straight home. I was home alone by that time and had no real way to evacuate except by bike or on foot and would prefer not to have to do that.

 

So far, so good.... we haven't had to evacuate yet but there is a helicopter circling the scene now. The mayor was just on the air talking about the situation. She said that they still haven't ruled out evacuating our area.

[Becca_Anne]

Oh my! I hope your hubby can come home quick and get you. Even if they didn't officially evacuate I'd want to move a bit further away until the situation was dealt with

[sassenach]

2 1/2 hrs later....... did not hear a thing on cnn or fox tonight by 8 pm til I changed the channel, hoping all is ok in your town and you are in your warm house enjoying your evening!

[themartianchick]

We are still at home, but the bags are packed and ready to go if needed. The news is mostly obsessed with tonight's SU game and there was a great deal of concern about how they would route the traffic. In fact, they have decided not to do any clean up until after the game attendees leave. They have evacuated 60 homes so far but don't expect to do our area. It is amazing how they will bend over backwards to help SU make money! The game is being held less than a mile from the accident.

 

While one train car was a propane tanker , the other one that de-railed was carrying soybeans. If I liked soybeans, it might be one of those opportunities to offer my assistance in the cleanup in exchange for carrying some home. Unfortunately, it is wet and nasty outside, so I doubt that I'd want any of them anyway!

 

Here is a link to a news story about it:

 

http://centralny.ynn.com/content/top_stories/563511/train-derailment-evacuates-neighborhood-and-closes-roads/

[Amishway Homesteaders]

We are a where of things like that here, seeing we at about 100 yards from the main train yard around here (1 reason I bought this house - love watching trains), had the railroad scanner on so knew of backlog of trains and why but didn't think of you being so close.

Good to know that you knew what to do and who to call ' just in case'.

 

[Annarchy]

Glad to hear you & yours are OK.

[themartianchick]

They just announced on the news that the propane tanker accident has been cleared and that people have been moved back into their homes. We learned a few things from the experience... The main thing that I learned is that I was too passive in dealing with hubby. He sorta thought that I was over-reacting to the situation when I asked him to come straight home after work. I had asked him not to stop off to take care of a pre-planned errand because I wanted him to come home in case of evacuation.

 

He did the errand anyway and then got caught up in traffic through the city because the highway was closed. If I'd actually needed to evacuate in a timely manner, it might not have happened. It took him twice as long to get home. I found out later that the city had arranged for a bus to carry people in the evacuated area to a shelter. However, I would have wanted to go to my parents' house...not a shelter.

 

Hubby was in the doghouse for awhile because he also called the cable company to reset the cable box in the middle of the mayor's press conference. He was trying to watch another tv program upstairs and the cable was acting up on the other tv. So at the beginning of the mayor's speech... All of the cable tv in the house went out so that I missed the entire report. It was as though he didn't realize how serious the situation was. Even his brother had told him that the firefighters in the area said that the concern was with the fact that the propane was odorless and that if it blew, all of the houses in the area use natural gas so there could be a serious chain reaction.

 

I finally got ticked off... and set him straight about it. I pointed out the way that he'd been acting and he apologized. He just hadn't thought the whole thing through the way that I had. To him, it was an emergency that was affecting a different neighborhood and it was under control. To me, it wasn't at all under control as long as the tank was upside down next to the tracks. To me, it was a giant bomb!

 

The star performer in all of this was my oldest daughter. At 22, she is becoming a bit of a prepper. She called me promptly when I emailed her (no personal phone calls at work) and I was able to explain the situation. She planned to come to our house because she lives on the other side of the area that was evacuated. After we talked, she sent me a text asking if she needed to leave work early. I told her not to because she was safer where she was. If we'd had to evacuate, then we would have just picked her up at work. She carries a big backpack and always has some emergency items in it. It isn't a BOB, she just likes to have a lot of her stuff handy if she is delayed. She caught the bus to the house and immediately got the turtle ready to travel in a container without water and hauled out cages to carry the quail in, if needed. I didn't have the heart to tell her that in an extreme emergency, we would have taken the turtle because he's easy, but the quail would have been left behind. I might have opened the cages, but I doubt it.

 

The 21 year old was safely at work so she didn't get home until late at night. There really wasn't much to do at that point. I told everyone to sleep fully dressed in case we got a call or a knock at the door telling us to get out. We all kept our shoes handy.

 

Edited to add:

 

Since this was a simple evacuation-type of scenario, there really wasn't anything that we were lacking except for transportation to get me out. Hubby's brother showed up before hubby did, so I know that I could have had a way out. Of course you shouldn't rely on that. I can walk but wouldn't have been able to carry everything that I wanted. In all of the fuss, I forgot that I do have a double stroller that is easily accessible. I could have thrown the bags into the stroller and walked. My younger daughter left about 20 minutes before I became aware of what was going on. If she had been at home, we could have easily walked the bags out of the area.

[Jeepers]

Glad it wasn't any more serious. It could have easily been a major disaster. So glad you are safe! It ended up being a good practice exercise though.

[Mt_Rider]

Now that's a scenario I haven't done yet...... Glad you and yours were all fine. Glad also that the dress rehearsal gives your family a chance to process how serious things get UNexpectedly.

 

 

 

MtRider [...doesn't it seem like there is a lot of things happening right now. ]