C70:railroad (06/16/82)
>From sytek!msm@LBL-UNIX Tue Jun 15 19:17:24 1982
a218 1251 15 Jun 82
AM-Derailed, Bjt,580
One Killed And 23 Injured As Train Derails In Flood
By MARK MITTELSTADT
Associated Press Writer
EMERSON, Iowa (AP) - The Amtrak passenger train San Francisco Zephyr
rounded a bend at 76 mph just outside this flooded city Tuesday and hit a
"wall of water," killing one woman as it jumped the tracks.
Sixteen people were hospitalized and 150 suffered minor injuries,
mostly cuts and bruises.
Mills County Sheriff Ed James said 400 volunteers, some of them in
boats, helped rescue the 200 passengers inside the 12 cars of the train
that derailed after the tracks were washed out by floodwaters 3 to 4 feet
deep.
Martha Francois of Galeskburg, Ill., said she was telephoned by her
daughter, Jenna Ehrenhart, 17. Her daughter said she saved a 1-year-old
child from a railroad car that was sitting in the water, and the pair were
evacuated by boat. The child's mother, the daughter said, had been crushed
betwee"]{ cars.
Terri N. Thomas, 19, of Santa Maria, Calif., was dead on arrival at
Montgomery County Hospital in nearby Red Oak, according to Allen Pohren,
assistant hospital administrator.
Zephyr engineer Joe Schwartz of Omaha, Neb., a 30-year railroad
veteran, said he and another crew member had been talking about the water
along the railroad right-of-way just before the train bound from Chicago to
Denver jumped the Burlington Northern Railroad tracks about 3 a.m..
"We came around a curve, saw the water and put the train in emergency,"
Schwartz said. "Then we derailed."
"The lights went out and then there was a whole lot of screaming," said
12-year-old Jason Bridie of Clarinda, Iowa. "We were all thrown out of our
seats."
Jack Crandall, head of Iowa Disaster Services, said, "The engineer said
he was going 76 mph and was rounding a bend and suddenly there was no track
in front of him."
State Rep. Bill Harbor, who was at the scene about 2 1/2 miles outside
Emerson, described what the engineer saw as a "wall of water" running over
the tracks when he rounded the turn.
The front of the train went under an overpass and derailed. The two-
unit engine came to rest in the water running from farm fields into Indian
Creek. The floodwaters had undermined the roadbed and railroad ties
floated down the creek.
A baggage car behind the engine came to rest on its side and the
remaining cars tilted but remained upright, as floodwaters swirled around
the wheels.
The Iowa Office of Disaster Services had already opened its disaster
headquarters in Des Moines on Monday night because of widespread flooding
in western Iowa, where up to 9 inches of rain fell.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from homes in Emerson, and the
neighboring towns of Glenwood and Malvern, as water ran 5 feet deep through
the streets.
Gov. Robert Ray declared Mills County - the Emerson region - a
disaster area, making it eligible for state aid, and Nebraska Gov. Charles
Thone offered the help of the National Guard from his state.
Amtrak passengers were taken to emergency shelters set up for flood
evacuees in an Emerson school, and later two busloads were taken to the
train depot in Omaha for alternate transportation.
ap-ny-06-15 1550EDT
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