CLAIR, Sask., — The community of Clair was turned upside down yesterday.
A Canadian National Railway train derailed there around 10:40 a.m. while carrying numerous cars. Some of them exploded during the derailment.
The community was evacuated due to safety concerns and because of concerns about the air quality from the smoke that was coming form the cars.
Mike Hallam of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, was in his hunting lodge when the derailment occurred.
Hallam said they saw the crash within a minute of it happening, but they did not hear the explosion because the train was blowing its whistle for the next intersection.
After that, things were calm, but then they got a knock on the door.
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“Nothing really happened, but about a half hour later the police were knocking on our door. We were sitting down eating lunch and they told us we had to leave in a hurry.”
Hallam said he had 12 people in the hunting lodge with him and they had to find some place to go since they all were from the United States.
Some went to a friend’s house and others went into Saskatoon for the day but were having trouble finding hotel rooms.
Hallam was trying to find a place to stay for the night because it looked like there was little chance they could return to the lodge.
Jason Evans, who owns Clair–Side Bison in Clair, wasn’t home when the derailment happened nor was his family, but his herd of 100 bison were.
Evans’ herd is right on the outskirts of Clair and he was worried they were going to be caught in the smoke or even the ground fire.
Luckily most of the bison, from what he could see, had moved west away from the crash site.
Evans’ bison were safe, but his next worry was his hay and grain land that were down wind from the derailment.
“I don’t know if any of that’s contaminated. And then what about your ground, like, you know, like for next year, your grain land. Because I got about 800 acres over there the same way that smoke was going. Is that hay land and that grain land going to be contaminated now?”
Evans is also worried about his well water being contaminated from the smoke and fire.
Evans said he was able to pull spikes out of part of the tracks slightly less than a kilometre west of Clair after the derailment happened.
RCMP closed Highway 5 between Wadena and Watson and set up a detour on gravel roads through the area.
Updates to follow.
