EMERGENCY PERSONNEL ATTEND SEMINAR ON TRAIN DERAILMENTS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- In the event of a train derailment involving the release of hazardous materials, local firefighters, police, ambulance and other emergency services personnel will most likely be the first to respond.

The way in which they respond to this emergency may be a matter of life and death to themselves, and others.

On Thursday, nearly 200 firefighters and other emergency services providers from Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois attended two training seminars dealing with the correct and safe way to respond to a hazardous material accident after a train derailment.

The seminar was sponsored by the Burlington Northern Railroad, and hosted by the Cape Girardeau Fire Department. The classroom portion of the seminars were held in the fire department's training room.

Later, the groups went to the BN's South Cape Girardeau yards, where a special train was spotted on a siding. There, BN personnel demonstrated the techniques discussed in the classroom.

Matt Henry, manager of hazardous materials for the BN, said the purpose of the seminars is to give emergency services providers the kind of training and information needed to make a safe and correct response to any derailment involving hazardous materials.

Despite widely-publicized train derailments during the past decade, Henry said it has been over 10 years since a life was lost in a hazardous materials accident involving trains.

He said some of the reasons for that are: better maintenance of the track and equipment - reducing the number of train derailments; better constructed rail cars that carry the hazardous materials; and more training for local emergency services responders on how to respond to a hazardous materials accident.

Henry said regulations concerning the transport and handling of hazardous materials on trains were first written in 1907 by the American Association of Railroads. Later, those rules were made mandatory by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and now, the Department of Transportation.