Evacuation of Raymond, Minnesota, residents following derailment of BNSF train goes exactly to plan

Jennifer Kotila, West Central Tribune, Willmar, Minn.
·4 min read

Mar. 30—RAYMOND

— By all accounts, the evacuation of the city of Raymond after a

BNSF Railway

train derailed at 1 a.m. Thursday morning was a seamless operation — everybody trained to help showed up and knew exactly what needed to be done.

"It went really good," said Kandiyohi County Sheriff Eric Tollefson. "We had enough firefighters showing up from other agencies where they had enough manpower at the scene they were able to help us with the door-to-door evacuation."

Kandiyohi County Chief Sheriff's Deputy Kent Bauman arrived in Raymond before Tollefson and served as incident commander, setting up the command post. Tollefson coordinated the door-to-door evacuation.

"The north side was the most pressing, because of the wind direction and the proximity of that neighborhood to the fire," Tollefson said, noting the northwest portion of town was door-knocked twice.

Some of the tanker cars were carrying ethanol that leaked and caught fire in the derailment. No one was injured.

Kandiyohi County Emergency Management

Director Stephanie Felt praised the work of the community emergency response team.

"These guys are kind of the unsung heroes. They show up, they do the things," she said, noting they are neighbors and there when needed, whether it be sandbagging, mucking out basements, helping with traffic control or distributing masks. "They're just there. It's amazing."

The community emergency response team command post was set up at the Central Minnesota Christian School in Prinsburg by 2 a.m., according to Felt. The command post and evacuees were sent to the Unity Christian Reformed Church in Prinsburg later in the morning.

"As the morning went on, we discerned both that school needed to be in session and we were going to be here for a while," said Unity Christian Pastor Steve Zwart. "So we moved the whole operation from the school over here and kind of made this 'Grand Central Station.'"

Raymond Ambulance assisted in transporting evacuees who did not have a vehicle of their own to Prinsburg, making several trips — one of which carried Vanessa Garvick and Pam Haugen, who live in an apartment building four to five blocks from the railroad tracks in Raymond.

Garvick had her two dogs with her at the church when being interviewed. A volunteer had gone to get her dogs for her, although many people brought their dogs with them when evacuating during the early morning hours and were not turned away from the shelter.

"We realize people don't leave their homes if they can't bring their pets. I get it, I'm one of those people," Felt said, noting that the CERT team has kenneling supplies to accommodate pets and a separate area set up for pets. "We want to make sure that we can accommodate that and that everyone is safe."

"It was scary at first," said Liandri Badenhorst, who is from South Africa and has only been in Raymond for two weeks visiting her husband who works here. "It was just unbelievable how they could stand together as one community. I'm not used to that from where I come from."

She had her 2-year-old son, Lourens, with her at the shelter. "He doesn't see the difference," she said about how he was handling the evacuation. "He just sees a lot of presents and stuff to open."

"Everybody knew what they were supposed to do and when they were supposed to do it and how they were supposed to do it and click, click, click, it all just happened so smoothly," Zwart said. "People knew where to go, people had immediate shelter. We had food for people, people were safe and that's just a credit to a well-coordinated effort."

He commended the businesses of Kandiyohi County for stepping up to provide everything evacuees would need. People were served breakfast and lunch before the OK was given for them to go home. In fact, so much food was donated during the evacuation that evacuees were being sent home with boxes of food.

"Let me just say this, the businesses of Kandiyohi County have been outstanding," he continued. "We have received so many phone calls — banks, grocery stores, food shelves, restaurants, you name it, gas stations — have all kicked in and it is a tremendous show of compassion, a tremendous show of community, the way just in an instant people said, 'We want to help.' We have just been inundated with help."

He noted that law enforcement was very patient with people as they were evacuating, allowing them to gather their thoughts and make sure they would have everything they needed with them.

While at the shelter, the Red Cross checked in with everybody to make sure they had what they needed, especially the most vulnerable, Zwart added.

"It's a startling thing, it's an unsettling thing. But, again, what made it go so well is just a well-coordinated effort by everyone and just the spirit of compassion and volunteerism that everybody was taken care of," he said.