Killer Gas Can't Make Him Leave

Bobby Riner peers through his plastic-covered windows and watches men in hazmat suits ride through the deserted streets of Graniteville on four-wheelers.

Environmental cleanup crews are working to stop chlorine gas from leaking out of a wrecked train car three blocks from his home. But Riner said Saturday he feels assured towels plugging the gaps under his doors and plastic on the windows keep out any toxic vapors that have killed at least 9 people and sickened more than 250.

"They're checking around the outskirts of it and they're not wearing face masks, so the air must not be too contaminated on the outside of it," Riner said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The 39-year-old is among 12 people who refused evacuation orders Thursday after toxic vapors from one of the nation's deadliest chemical spills in years chased about 5,400 residents out of their homes.

Riner's older brother, Eddie, would not budge from the home they share. "He has panic attacks and he's disabled and I'm not going to run off and leave him," Riner said.

All authorities could do was collect information on the Riners' next-of-kin to notify in case of death. "There's still the potential that chlorine vapors may drift off away from the wreck site into some of the nearby neighborhoods," said Thom Berry, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. "It was his choice."

Riner said he and his brother had enough food until at least Tuesday, the earliest residents in a one-mile radius of the wreck were told they may be allowed to return to their homes.
Norfolk Southern has paid for hotels rooms and handed out $100 gift cards to Wal-Mart or checks to cover other expenses, but displaced residents were anxious to get home.

Aiken County Sheriff's Lt. Michael Frank said officials were working on a plan to help the many pets were left behind. For now, a dusk-to-dawn curfew remains for those within two miles of the wreck for fear that cool night air would cause the chlorine to settle close to the ground.

Authorities said all the deaths appeared to have been caused by the plume of gas that settled over its victims in their homes, their cars and the Avondale Mills textile plant.
Investigators wearing protective suits and oxygen tanks continue to search the dense, swampy woods behind the plant where they think a missing worker may have tried to flee when the gas gripped the area early Thursday, Frank said.

"Another problem for the searches is it's so heavily grown up with underbrush and woods that there is a fear that vegetation could tear the protective suits that the searches are wearing," Berry said. "That's another reason it's taking as long as it is because of the fact they're having to be very, very careful."

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said they were investigating what caused the freight train carrying 42 cars to collide with a parked train at a crossing next to the plant, where 400 workers were on the night shift making denim and other fabrics.

Five workers died at the mill. A man was found dead in a truck near the plant. Another man was found dead in his home. The train engineer died at a hospital.

Two nine-member crews were working around the clock to apply a steel patch over a fist-sized hole in the train, Berry said. Work also was planned to remove chlorine from two additional railroad tankers involved in the crash.

"It looks like they're going to try and work as expeditiously as possible and try to get the patch on there but I would anticipate that 24 to 36 hour figure is probably still going to be pretty accurate," Berry said.

State and federal environmental officials have continued conducting air quality tests, finding either low levels or nothing at all a couple blocks away from the site. The crash site levels were higher.

"The smell had died down. The wind is blowing away from us, so that has helped some," said Riner, who stepped outside briefly.

"I think it's probably getting better."