South Carolina Attorney Lawyer

There are ten months, the safety of government officials warned against the fact that more than half the country under pressure from 60000 rail tank cars did not meet the requirements of industry standards, and they asked questions about the safety of the rest of the fleet as well.

Your concern that the failure of the steel tanks could easily in an accident prophetic established.

Thursday, a train crash in South Carolina have created a deadly release of chlorine: 9 people were killed, 58 were hospitalized and treatment of hundreds of other research. The ninth figure was reached yesterday, and thousands of people were kept out of their homes.

Last summer, a derailment in Texas of a steel tank car to break open, spewing clouds of chlorine gas that three dead.

The exact causes of accidents are still under study. But the desolation, she showed why tank cars have a growing concern, not only on safety investigators but also on domestic security officials worried that terrorists could again tank cars in deadly weapons.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2002, warned that Al-Qaeda, planning to attack trains the USA, or perhaps caused the derailment of tank cars loaded with explosive hazardous substances.

And after bombings on tilting trains from 191 deaths in Spain last March, security officials secretly convinced that a railroad reroute toxic emissions, the routine had passed within four blocks of the Capitol Washington, government officials said.

With the federal railway and chemical industry to improve train safety. But there is still much to be done, especially given the structural weaknesses of many tank cars, current and former federal officials say. George Gavalla, a former associate administrator for safety in the Republic Federal Railroad Administration, said railroads had promised to beef security, when there is a credible terrorist threat.

So if this threat is born a year ago in Las Vegas, “said Gavalla, sent an inspector there on New Year’s Day for the assessment of security measures in force. These measures, he said, are virtually nonexistent.

If the inspector access road Hof 13 km from the airport, he found nobody out over a period of six tank cars with markers indicating that the chlorine gas had abstained, according to a memorandum written, it has his visit. Two hours later, others, he visited a site track four tank cars that can be toxic gas and they were unguarded, the memorandum stressed.

Finally, Mr. Gavalla said, the inspector visits towards the courtyard near several hotels. “None of the crew members train in question, me or even talked with me,” wrote the inspector. A spokesman for the administration of Railways has declined to comment.

Railroad officials said they have taken many steps to improve security. Nancy L. Wilson, Senior Vice President of the Association of American Railroads, said in a statement about the same time as the inspection that the railroads had “strengthen security and enhanced controls on their systems.” Police forces of major railroads, Ms. Wilson said, “has been in service for more than 50 measures to ensure the security industry.”

How to break the tank cars can affect a community was underscored three years ago, when a Canadian Pacific Railway freight derailed just outside Minot, ND Five tank cars, a sort of process gas ammonia opened, where toxic fumes killed, a place of residence and more than 300 injured

The National Transportation Safety Board, in a report on the accident during the last year, said the steel shells broken in five tank cars had become brittle, causing a “catastrophic fracture”, released clouds toxic fumes. These cars, which Safety Board found, were built before 1989, with steel, which are not - as now - undergo a special heat treatment to do more and less fragile. 1989 tank cars built after these treaties steel.

The safety board warned that the 60000 pressure tank cars in service, more than half were older cars that are not built to current industry standards, so they subject to breakage. And because these cars may remain in service for up to 50 years, some seniors can still time by 2039 hazardous substances.

With regard to dangerous substances, the tank cars of the device are ammonia, chlorine, propane and vinyl chloride. In most cases, cars are in possession of chemical or leasing companies, but not railways.

“We needed for this sort of thing,” said Kathryn Blackwell, a spokesman for Union Pacific, the nation’s largest railroad. “We do not, in many cases, but it is one of the things we would like chemical companies to be responsible.”

Although the rail industry now requires that service stations cups with the heat-treated special steel, Safety Board said that only the treatment “not sufficient guarantee of protection against shocks. Other manufacturing processes should also be considered the possibility, “said board, but he warned that the hotel industry and railways” have not demonstrated appropriate test to measure the impact resistance of stainless steel and other materials in the construction of pressure tank cars. ”

Steven W. Kulm, a spokesman for the rail terminal, said: “We have a long history of measures and actions have improved the integrity of the construction of tank cars.” Mr. Kulm said Since 1994 accidents were few in number, “if one death, he added, was too many. “Tank cars are more crashworthy and pannengeschützt train derailments today more than ever,” he said.

In the Texas crash last summer, tank cars, broken and that toxic gas was released before 1989, although federal investigators have not yet finished, so fragile steel played a role in this accident. The fall of South Carolina to a new rupture of the tank cars manufactured in 1993, said Richard Koch, Vice President of Public Affairs in the Olin Corporation, a diversified processing, which is in possession of the car.

Mr. Koch said he was recertified on petroleum hazardous substances last June. Investigators have just begun research on why tank cars broke, and then, if the Confederation of safety standards or recommendations were ignored.

Railroad and chemical executives formed a task force to investigate the safety board recommendations, and it was the implementation of crash-tests in about a dozen tank cars.

Michael E. Lyden, Vice President for storing and transporting chlorine to the Institute, a trade group in Arlington, Va., said the leading companies are “work in a cooperative manner to improve the pressure.”

Industry officials said the group could recommend the resignation of cars, some manufacturers or suggest that some types of cars less hazardous materials.

Experts safe, said the recent incident shows that terrorists harm could result if it attacks the trains, highly substances. Some cars are also for storage of chemicals in water treatment, sewage and industrial installations.

“Whether an accident or Al Qaeda, these hazardous materials are very vulnerable and pose a serious threat to densely populated areas,” said Edward J. Representatives Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, has pushed for the rail and greater network security solutions.

The risk of such an attack was a major concern since the September 11 strikes. If the USA conquered Afghanistan in October 2001, freight railways in the situation 72 hours on a moratorium on the implementation of certain dangerous chemicals as a precautionary measure, retaliatory measures against the strike.

In the warning in 2002 about possible attacks, the FBI said: “Recently, photographs recorded by the Al-Qaeda USA engines railway, cars and crossings increases the Intelligence Community’s concern by this threat. ”

Fears have been most evident among local officials in Washington, some of whom have pushed for a year to ban toxic emissions while the rail of the capital. An expert from the Naval Research Laboratory in January, shows that over 100000 people could be in danger of death or injury, if a tank car exploded.

Federal officials and railways have voted against a ban and said that the deviation of emissions could be to extend the transit and support other municipalities.

But the end of last year, officials of the Department of Homeland Security Congress of Deputies said that after the Madrid attacks, she asked the silence CSX Corporation, a major railways, to relocate part of Transport away from Washington, said Markey.

Officials have also said she is working on a plan of $ 6 million for security, monitoring rising 42 km of rail in the Washington area.

The District of Columbia Council rejected the proposal for a ban November last year. But Kathy Patterson, District of Columbia councilwoman, said in an interview that the accident occurred last week in South Carolina should increase the chances that the Council could approve the ban, if the case back to the beginning of the month to come.

“Frankly, the terrible news of South Carolina underscores that these chemicals are really bad,” said Patterson, “and it could make a difference with my colleagues, especially given the magnitude that we are vulnerable here. “