"NTSB blames officials for parade-train crash; Organizers’ lack of safety plan, dropped measures cited" by Joan Lowy | Associated Press, November 06, 2013
WASHINGTON — An oncoming freight train sounded its warning, and track guard gates started to descend. But the crowd was cheering, a marching band was playing, the lights of a police escort were flashing, and a truck driver towing a parade float of wounded veterans and their wives in Midland, Texas, advanced heedlessly into the crossing.
The train rammed the float at 62 miles per hour, killing four veterans and injuring 11 other veterans and their wives.
The National Transportation Safety Board faulted organizers and city officials Tuesday for their lack of safety planning, not the driver towing the float.
“This terrible collision between a fast-moving freight train and a slow-rolling parade float of veterans and their loved ones should never have occurred,” said chairwoman Deborah Hersman at a safety board meeting after a yearlong investigation. “Parade and event organizers must identify and manage hazards in advance to ensure a safe outcome for participants and spectators.”
Citing other fatal accidents at parades and events in Bangor; Edmond, Okla.; and Damascus, Va., the five-member board made a series of safety recommendations to cities and counties regarding the need for permits and safety plans.
The parade had been an annual event in Midland, a transportation and commerce hub in the West Texas oilfields, for nine years. A charity had invited the veterans for a three-day weekend of hunting and shopping in appreciation of their service, including a parade timed to fall near Veterans Day.
Led by three police vehicles and a marching band, two floats with veterans and their spouses were en route to a banquet in their honor on Nov. 15, 2012, when the collision occurred. One float had just cleared the highway grade crossing, and a second flatbed was edging across the tracks when it was struck by a Union Pacific train. Several veterans and their wives jumped from the float before the collision.
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Investigators described to the safety board how safety precautions for the annual parade had melted away over the years.
After the first few years that the parade was held the route was changed from one that did not cross Union Pacific’s tracks to a route that did. For several years after the route change, parade organizers would alert the railroad to their plans and police were stationed at the highway grade crossing. But those precautions were dropped by last year.
In the early years, organizers obtained parade permits from the city. But last year, no permit was obtained in violation of city regulations, investigators said. Even if a permit had been issued, regulations did not require parade organizers to submit a safety plan, they said.
“It seems things got lax in the planning,” highway safety investigator Gary Van Etten told the board. “There was no [safety] plan.”
Midland officials, responding to the board’s findings, said that while they have implemented significant changes in the city’s process for handling special events, they realize there is more work to be done.
“The review and upcoming one-year anniversary of the accident bring back many painful emotions and memories,” the city’s statement said. “Our hope is that those who have followed our story are still listening so that these recommendations can also help them hold safe, successful events in the future.”
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