Matteson residents were allowed to return to their homes Thursday afternoon, hours after a train derailed and officials worried about a possible chemical leak from the wreckage.
“Everything has been mitigated and there is no danger to the public,” Mayor Sheila Chalmers-Currin said at a news conference.
A mandatory evacuation order was put in place after 25 cars in a Canadian National Railway train derailed about 10:30 a.m near 218th and Main streets in the south suburb. There were no reports of fires or injuries, although one car containing “residue liquified petroleum gas” leaked, the company said.
A “trace” amount was released when a derailed tanker was breached, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency said. There were no other breaches to train cars containing hazardous materials.
Residents who lived within a mile of the derailment were ordered to leave their homes. Steve DeJong, a firefighter with a statewide hazardous material response team, said during an afternoon news conference that the substance is commonly known as propane — “just like you’d use in your grill” — and the train was carrying only residual amounts.
“Not knowing that [the cars contained only residual amounts], the evacuation was put into place,” DeJong said.
The evacuation order applied to up to 300 people, Chalmers-Currin said.
Fire Chief Michael Bacon said, “there was no danger to the community but initially it was in the best interest to have an evacuation order put in place.”
Cheryl Jones, who was at her home on the 3500 block of 218th Street when the train derailed, didn’t hear the crash but saw a community alert on her phone about a train derailment.
“I didn’t think anything of it, then police came to the door banging and told me that I had to evacuate,” Jones said.
Jones, 64, packed a few things and grabbed her cat, then drove to her son’s house in Park Forest until the evacuation was lifted. She said the neighborhood emptying out seemed “spooky,” and as one of the last ones out, said it was like a “ghost town.”
Her sister, Theresa Price, whom she lives with, was at work when the train derailed.
“She was frightened and I was scared for her,” Price, 60, said.
Price came home from work in the afternoon to a neighborhood full of emergency vehicles, work trucks and neighbors standing outside. Helicopters hovered above the area. Their home sits less than a block from where the train derailed.
Access to her street remained detoured Thursday night, and workers were still cleaning up the wreck.
DeJong said the leak was small and firefighters were able to contain it. The propane that did escape evaporated, dispersing so widely that it didn’t register on detectors, he said.
No injuries have been reported. The evacuation order was lifted by 1:30 p.m. and those affected were informed that it was safe to return to their homes, authorities said.
Some Metra Electric service was affected, but by 2 p.m. the transit agency said its trains were cleared to make all stops between 211th Street and University Park, according to an alert on Metra’s website.
“We are aware and collecting information about the event but have not launched an investigation at this time,” a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said in an email to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Officials with the Illinois EPA were on site to help coordinate the emergency response, the agency said in a statement.
The Illinois Emergency Management Agency and the Office of Homeland Security have been in contact with local authorities, but as of Thursday afternoon those agencies haven’t received requests for state assets, the Illinois EPA said.
Canadian National Railway did not immediately comment on the derailment.
Contributing: AP
