Houston-area educators and officials participate in training on train derailment near Baytown – Houston Public Media

Goose Creek CISD in Baytown hosted a train derailment training exercise Tuesday for more than 100 education and emergency management professionals from the Houston area.

The exercise took place at George Washington Carver Elementary School, built right next to the railroad tracks. Dr. Anthony Price is the Deputy Superintendent of Operational Services at Goose Creek. He said participants had to move students from a disaster area to a safer location.

“We sheltered in place, meaning we put stuff around the doors and kept stale air from getting in, if chemicals were released, to keep stale air from getting in while we kept the children safe,” he said. “And then we loaded them onto buses and took them to another school that wasn’t near the train tracks.”

Price added that while this was a train derailment drill, this practice can also help in the event of nearby factory explosions and other environmental emergencies. Last year in Shepherd ISD, northeast of Houston, students had to be evacuated after a massive fire at a nearby chemical plant. And in 2021, a Baytown refinery injured at least four people after an explosion.

During a debriefing after the training exercise, some participants noted that language barriers were not originally considered, but that changes were made during the exercise to help Spanish speakers through exercise.

“In the future, we will have to think about the possibility of using other languages ​​in the building,” Price said. “We may need to cover them as well.”

Leslie Etheridge is director of the Center for Safe and Secure Schools at the Harris County Department of Education. His department often partners with Houston-area districts to conduct safety training and audits. She said she hopes other school districts will see the value in this type of emergency training.

“In Texas, there are a lot of emergencies. And typically when you talk about emergency preparedness, a lot of school districts think ‘active shooter,’” Etheridge said. “…Goose Creek was a great place to practice a train derailment because there are so many trains in that area.”