Thirty-three hazmat tank cars derailed and exploded, releasing a deadly combination of industrial chemicals. The derailed tanks also set the surrounding woods ablaze, which an ongoing drought has left vulnerable to fire.

Eunice, a southwest Louisiana town of 12,000 people, is about 77 miles west of Baton Rouge. The spectacular explosion and fire, which at one point sent a fireball 200 feet into the air, forced some 3,500 people in a two and a half mile radius to evacuate the area, which was mainly around Eunice High School. Many fled with no change of clothing or prescription medicine.

Among the chemicals discharged into the atmosphere were toluene diisocyanate, used to tint glass, which is flammable and corrosive to the lungs, nose, and throat; 1,2 dichloropropane, used in cleaning fluids and paint thinner, which can cause chest pain and make the linings of the eyelids bleed; methyl chloride, an agricultural chemical that can cause dizziness, convulsions, and death in large enough amounts; as well as acrylic acid, molten phenol, dicyclopentadiene, pentanes, hexanes, and corrosive liquids.

Louisiana state trooper E.J. Chesne warned residents anxious about pets and homes left behind, "If you come back into these neighborhoods, you could get arrested." By June 1, five days later, all but about 200 people were allowed back in their homes.

The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched "a team of experts" to investigate the derailment.

According to one of its spokesmen, they will "look into railroad operations to determine whether train handling or excessive speed played roles in the accident." Both the engineer and conductor on the wrecked train were tested for drugs and alcohol.

After the fires died down three tank cars had to be intentionally detonated because they were too risky to move. Hazardous chemicals may have leaked into a nearby bayou, where two hazmat tanks were thrown, and into nearby rice fields. The city's water works plant is also located less than two miles from the derailment.

Earlier in May, several hundred residents of New Iberia, also in southwest Louisiana, were forced to evacuate when a Burlington Northern-Santa Fe train carrying hazmats derailed 10 cars.

Bill Kalman is a freight conductor for CSX Railroad in Hialeah, Florida, and a member of United Transportation Union Local 1138.  
 
 
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