New photos from West Virginia Crude Oil Derailment

Greetings, 

In a series of recent crude-by-rail incidents, the latest derailment comes to us from southern West Virginia, southeast of the capital city of Charleston. As reported on the magazine's New Wire yesterday with periodic updates, an initial generalization of the derailment includes approximately two dozen derailed tank cars, with as many as 13 of those cars on fire. The derail occurred at approximately 1:20 PM EST on Monday, February 16. A series of explosions accompanied the derailment, with the most severe of those explosions reported at 11:30 PM on Monday night, approximately 10 hours after the derailment. Small fires continued into early Tuesday morning as rail officials slowly moved into the incident scene to examine the extent of damages. Stay tuned to Trains News Wire for additional developments on this incident. The below photos are from a visit to the derailment scene and surrounding perimeter this morning. 

Nearly a dozen R.J. Corman Derailment semis containing cleanup gear idle along Route 61 in downtown Montgomery, W.Va. on the morning of Tuesday Feb. 17, 2015. Rail officials and first responders are allowing the small remaining fires to burn themselves out before cleanup crews are permitted into the incident scene. 

The Montgomery Fire Department in the background serves as an emergency command center for local, state and federal officials following Monday's derailment of more than two dozen loaded crude oil tank cars in nearby Mount Carbon. All support staff and emergency personnel have utilized downtown Montgomery as a staging ground for equipment and communications, as seen in this early Tuesday morning perspective.

An unobstructed vantage point from across the Kanawha River shows a large percentage of the derailed equipment, totaling approximately 25 cars. Large explosions lasted into Monday night, nearly 12 hours after the initial derailment. This early Tuesday morning perspective shows the entire derailment scene, including the foundation of a home that was completely destroyed by the derailment. Emergency personnel are surveying the scene in anticipation of a time consuming cleanup process. 

R.J. Corman cleanup crews job brief in downtown Montgomery, in front of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity house near the campus of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology on Tuesday Feb. 17. Evacuations were still in effect on Tuesday morning as small fires continued in and around the derailment scene. Water intake valves were also shutoff in downtown Montgomery as a precautionary measure to preliminary reports that crude oil may have leaked into the waters of the Kanawha River.