Emergency Management and first responders explain response to potential train derailment

WARREN COUNTY, Ky.-How would Warren County handle a train derailment similar to the incident in East Palestine, Ohio?

“There are a lot of coalitions that work together on a daily basis to train for these types of large disasters,” said Emergency Management director Ronnie Pearson.

Freight trains move daily through Bowling Green. CSX will let Emergency Management know some information on what type of hazards are passing through the community.

“Some of those things are… we keep a log of things that are transported but we don’t release those to the public,” said Pearson.

Knowing this information helps them to have a plan in place of how to respond if a situation were to happen.

“We would work with a lot of state agencies in Kentucky, the environmental response teams would be brought in, probably the EPA to help determine the extent of the chemical, what it is, what are the hazards and what are the immediate actions that need to be done,” said Pearson.

One of the agencies that would be first on the scene is the Bowling Green Fire Department. they provided News 40 with a statement of how they would respond, saying,

“There is no way to prepare for an incident that has occurred in Ohio. The expense of supplies and maintenance of equipment is extremely high, especially for an incident that may never occur.

On a major incident, such as in Ohio, it would begin as a full response with seven units responding. It would then be upgraded from there. This is why it is so important for us to foster great working relationships with our community, state and federal resources.”

Local emergency management and first responder teams have experience dealing with the aftermath of a train derailment.

“We cleaned up the small hazards and a lot of that is just involving the diesel fuel along the locomotives, it was cleaned up no citizen harm, and we hope that never does happen,” said Pearson.