3,000 Evacuated After Tankers Derail

About 3,000 residents in the coastal towns of Grover City and Oceano were forced to leave their homes for 19 hours this weekend when a train, carrying a load of volatile gas in three tanker cars, derailed.

The evacuation was a precaution against the possibility of an explosion--but the derailment did not touch off any explosions, fires or leaks, said Arnold Dowdy, the administrator of Grover City, which is located 15 miles south of San Luis Obispo.

But the accident did ruin the weekends of many residents and tourists, including those who left their campfires behind Saturday night after they were hastily ordered out of Oceano State Park.

Amtrak passengers bound from Seattle to Los Angeles traveled the last leg of their journey Saturday by bus when the derailment tore up a 600-foot stretch of the state’s coastal rail route. Los Angeles passengers wanting to catch the northbound Amtrak train on Sunday morning were bused to San Luis Obispo to board, authorities said.

The accident occurred at 7:30 p.m. Saturday when nine of the 85 cars on a southbound Southern Pacific train traveling 35 m.p.h. jumped the tracks, said Andrew Anderson, a railroad spokesman. Three of the cars contained iso-butane, a colorless, odorless gas used as fuel, he said.

During the cleanup operation, a hazardous waste crew from Southern Pacific used cranes to right the three cars, which remained undamaged. After the cars were positioned upright and inspected for leaks, residents were allowed to return home at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

The cause of the accident has not been determined, Anderson said.

There was not enough daylight left to transfer 93,000 gallons of the volatile gas from the disabled tankers into other tanker cars, so the task was postponed until 6 a.m. today, Anderson said. Rail workers were expected to repair the track by late Sunday, thereby allowing Amtrak and other rail service to resume normal schedules.

Between, 1,700 and 1,800 of the temporarily displaced people waited out the ordeal at the high school in neighboring Arroyo Grande. Those stranded slept in classrooms and ate sandwiches and ice cream passed out by Red Cross volunteers. By Sunday, the evacuation had become a picnic of sorts. People, sitting on blankets in the school yard, sipped beer and soft drinks as they waited for the word to go home.

On Saturday night, authorities went door to door notifying residents of the evacuation. The warning apparently touched off some hysteria in Oceano. Some began imagining that they were inhaling toxic fumes.

“It was a scene of pandemonium,” said Steve Seager, a Oceano writer. “Everybody started coughing. Kids were screaming. There was real panic.”

“It was a different weekend,” observed Phil Gilbert, a camper from Visalia. A ranger told him and the rest of his party to drop their dinner Saturday, douse their fire and leave.