Casselton fire chief explains similarities in North Dakota, Ohio derailments

Casselton officials speak out about the train derailment in Ohio almost 10 years after a similar situation in North Dakota.

CASSELTON, N.D. (KVRR) — It’s nearly a decade after a broken axle in a train full of crude oil led to a derailment causing heavy fires in the tracks in Casselton.

The East Palestine, Ohio community faces a similar situation, as observers question how environmental hazards will affect the town’s plumbing with chemicals spilling into the Ohio River.

“If there is a spill of some sort that’s right next to a waterway, you do anything you can to keep it from getting into that. Not to be terribly surprised by that, but I’m sure there will be ongoing air monitoring and ground monitoring to see if anything has gotten to some place it shouldn’t be in,” Casselton Fire Chief John Hejl saud,

While Hejl says there are some parallels to the two, smoke from Casselton’s derailment moved into the countryside instead of through town as winds came from the north that day.

Reverse 911 calls which are used by public safety to communicate with the public were in place for non-mandatory evacuations.

“Stay calm. Trust your first responders and if they ask you to leave your house or ask you to do something, just go so they can get it done and get it cleaned up. They have the training. They know what they’re doing just as well as our community,” Casselton Mayor Mike Faught said.

Hejl added freezing temperatures and frozen ground helped keep products above ground level so chemicals couldn’t get into the soil.

The rail industry has made improvements to tank cars in the last decade to ensure they will not break easily.

“By October 2015 all general service tank cars instead of what was called a DOT-111, now they’re DOT-117’s. They’re built thicker, they have more safety standards in place for openings and valves and things of that nature. So, they are built better but also, if you can imagine, they have a phase out period,” Hejl said.

After Casselton’s 2013 derailment, Hejl realized the gap in his knowledge base on how to handle this emergency.

As he was training, he was approached to become an instructor for the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium where he taught for five years.