Today is the 20th anniversary of an event that changed a small South Carolina community forever.
On Jan. 6, 2005, two Norfolk Southern trains collided near the Avondale Mills plants in Graniteville due to an improperly aligned switch. Sixteen cars derailed, including five loaded with hazardous materials. Three were tankers filled with chlorine gas.
Nine people died, including a train engineer, six mill employees and two others. Another man who drove through a chlorine cloud died a few months later. Hundreds sought medical attention and thousands more had to be evacuated.
By May 2006, Avondale announced it would close all plants in the area, leaving thousands of textile workers without jobs. The company cited the derailment as the primary reason for the company’s failure.
Sam Ellis, coordinator of the Aiken Train Museum, was just a college student at the time of the crash. But he said it marked a turning point for a community built by the railroads and mills.
“In Aiken, Graniteville, Bath, Langley and all the mill towns, we all owe our existence to the railroads, so it’s doubly tragic,” Ellis said. “Whether it was a mistake, an accident, a mechanical failure – we owe so much of our history to the railroad coming through, and then the town died, effectively, by the railroad.”
The site is now adorned with a memorial to the victims. The mills have not resumed operations.
“It’s tragic that people lost their lives, but it’s almost unbelievable to see these towns that were fighting to thrive and had paths forward and then all of the sudden one night, it was all snatched away,” he said.
