HOXIE -- Two Union Pacific freight trains collided in Hoxie early Sunday morning, killing two crew members, injuring two others and forcing the evacuation of more than 300 people in the Lawrence County town.
Authorities did not release the names of the two killed, but said they were in the locomotives that crashed on tracks that run parallel with U.S. 67. Members of the National Transportation Safety Board traveled to the scene Sunday afternoon from Washington, D.C., to investigate the accident, a safety board member said.
The two trains hit head-on about 3 a.m. a half-mile south of the U.S. 67 and 63 exchange, Arkansas State Police said. Several cars burst into flames, prompting the evacuation.
Lawrence County Sheriff Jody Dotson said Union Pacific representatives told him the trains were carrying 14 chemicals -- some considered hazardous -- but he did not know what the chemicals were.
Union Pacific spokesman Jeff Degraff said he could not comment on the accident because the safety board has taken over the investigation. Calls to board spokesman Terry Williams in Washington, D.C., were not answered Sunday afternoon.
Deputies from Lawrence, Randolph and Craighead counties assisted in traffic control. The state police closed U.S. 63, routing traffic around the northern and eastern sides of Walnut Ridge, along with Arkansas 91 and U.S. 67.
"It's a mess," Dotson said of the wreckage.
Train cars lay scattered along the tracks and flames shot from wreckage late Sunday afternoon as thunderstorms brewed overhead. Dotson said one of the cars burning had a placard reading, "Alcohol, for human consumption."
Walnut Ridge Assistant Fire Chief Harold White said firefighters from Jonesboro, Hoxie, Paragould, Pocahontas, Black Rock and Lynn assisted in battling the blaze. No firefighters were injured, he said.
"It was a huge fire," White said. "You could see the flames from 4 or 5 miles away."
Several train cars were carrying long planks of wood. Other cars that tumbled along the tracks were tankers and metal freight cars.
Ernest Fultner, who lives about two blocks from the wreckage, said he heard the screeching of train brakes about 3 a.m. Sunday. "I heard them lock up and knew it didn't sound good," he said.
Fultner's nephew called him and told him to get his family out of their home and head to the Walnut Ridge Community Center, where the American Red Cross provided shelter and meals to those evacuated from their residences.
"There was a strong smell of smoke," Fultner said. "As we were leaving, we saw a light fog rolling in.
"It was giving me a headache," he said.
Melody Rogers of Hoxie was asleep at 4 a.m. when police banged on her home's door and told her to evacuate.
She headed to T-Ricks, a convenience store on Southwest Texas Street in Hoxie, where she works.
"I saw a huge fireball," she said. "And I saw the smoke.
"I've lived near the tracks all my life and never think about something like this until it happens," she said.
Jody Carter, the northeast Arkansas disaster program manager for the Red Cross, said 100 people spent early Sunday morning at the Walnut Ridge Community Center.
'He said the center was prepared to house families overnight Sunday if any needed to stay.
Red Cross spokesman Brigette Williams said the Walnut Ridge shelter closed Sunday evening after serving 118 people.
By noon, most of the displaced residents were allowed back to their homes, said Delinda Duckworth, a member of the Lawrence County Office of Emergency Management.
Police reopened all but a small stretch of U.S. 67 to traffic by Sunday afternoon.
It was the second time in two days that Lawrence County officials closed a U.S. highway because of an accident. Officials closed U.S. 63 at Black Rock after a construction crew working on a new bridge over the Black River knocked power lines across the highway Saturday evening.
Police routed traffic through Pocahontas -- a 40-mile detour -- until the road opened late Saturday.
On Sunday, clean-up crews began working on removing the train's wreckage. Large bulldozers knocked down trees along the Union Pacific tracks, and locomotives began hooking onto train cars that remained on the tracks to pull them from the site.
Dotson said he expected the stretch of U.S. 67 to remain closed for three or four days while crews worked.
State Desk on 08/18/2014
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