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Hurricane Rita

Bus explosion kills 24 evacuees

By wire services
Published September 24, 2005

WILMER, Texas - A bus ferrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire and exploded Friday while stuck on a gridlocked highway south of Dallas, killing as many as 24 people.

Early indications were that mechanical problems, possibly with the vehicle's brakes, sparked the fire, which was then fed by explosions of passengers' oxygen tanks, Dallas County sheriff's spokesman Don Peritz said.

"The oxygen canisters ignited, causing multiple explosions and making it too hot to get anyone else off at that point," Peritz said.

Authorities believed 24 people were killed, but that number could change, Peritz said. The medical examiner's office was working to determine the number of deaths. The bus was carrying 38 residents and six employees of Brighton Gardens nursing home in Houston, according to Sunrise Senior Living, the Virginia company that owns the center.

Sheriff's deputies and the bus driver tried to rescue passengers but could not get everyone off the bus as it became engulfed in flames. The first sheriff's deputy to arrive struggled to guide people out of the bus.

"The sheriff's deputy trying to get people off the bus used his flashlight, telling passengers to follow the light and some of them did but not all of them could," said John Wiley Price, a Dallas County commissioner.

The vehicle was reduced to a blackened, burned-out shell, with blue tarps covering the bodies. The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to the scene.

The fire caused a lengthy backup on Interstate 45, which was already congested with evacuees from the Gulf Coast. The interstate was shut down about four hours but reopened after authorities made the unusual decision to move the remains of the bus so hurricane evacuees could get through.

"You have thousands of people who are in their vehicles trying to escape," Peritz said.

Tina Jones, a nurse from Ennis, pulled over and helped treat the injured. She said she saw at least six dead bodies.

"I'll probably go home and have a good cry," she said.

Fred Witte, 74, said he heard three explosions from his property about 150 yards from where the bus caught fire.

"I was right there at the corner, and I felt the pressure," he said of the first explosion.

Sunrise Chairman and Chief Executive Paul Klaasen said in a statement that the company's "primary concern is for the safety of our residents, and we are shocked and saddened that this event occurred during our evacuation."

Ten patients, including the driver, had been treated and released at hospitals by Friday afternoon. Four patients remained hospitalized, one in stable condition and three in fair condition.

The bus was en route to another home owned by the same company and was traveling with a second bus. The other bus arrived safely in Dallas, company spokesman Jamison Gosselin said.

Interstate 45 stretches more than 250 miles from Galveston through Houston to Dallas. The crash site was about 17 miles southeast of downtown Dallas.

Information from the Associated Press and the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified September 24, 2005, 01:01:06]