It was 10 years ago this week that a Union Tank Co. tanker car derailed from a CSX train, caught fire and burned thousands of gallons of acrylonitrile, a toxic chemical. The evacuation that ensued, the water testing and lawsuits that followed were a constant reminder of the accident until being drowned out in the COVID-19 pandemic.
For those who wound up at the evacuation center set up at Heritage High School that morning or the people who stood in downtown Maryville or Alcoa and watched the plume of black smoke rise throughout the day, it’s an event a decade in the past but one they will never forget.
With the benefit of hindsight, here’s how things happened on July 2, 2015, and what followed as described in past issues of The Daily Times…