A resident of Cobblestone Square describes Saturday night’s train derailment.
Editor’s Note: Suha Charney lives in the Cobblestone Square apartments, the site of a trail derailment Saturday evening. The Advance spoke to her Sunday afternoon about the experience.
FXBG Advance: How did you learn about the derailment?
Suha Charney: I didn’t hear it happen, which I was surprised about. I live in one of the buildings towards the front of the complex.
A friend of mine messaged me [a link to a live stream of the scene] and said, “Hey, it says it’s at your apartment.” I went outside and saw all the fire trucks, and walked down and saw that they’d already taped it off. Neighbors were out trying to figure out what’s going on.
Folks who live in the building close by, that we are friendly with, came out. They said, “I heard it and felt it—it felt like an earthquake.”
FXBG Advance: Being so near the train derailment, did you see any of the damage to the garages?
SC: There’s a little dormer usually over about two or three actual garage spaces. When I walked up, I could see that [the dormer] was completely collapsed—you couldn’t see the garage underneath it.
The second dormer next to it was partially down. They had to break open the garage door to make sure there was nothing dangerous in there.
There was a gentleman who was in a wheelchair—actually it was his garage that was mainly affected. He had a Cadillac in there.
FXBG Advance: It’s fortunate that no one was in those garages.
SC: A lot of us were saying thankfully it didn’t happen during the day, because during the day, a lot of folks are tinkering in their garages. There is one gentleman who has a woodworking area in there. People hang out in those garages. So thankfully it was not worse than it could have been.
FXBG Advance: Had you ever given much thought to living so close to the railroad tracks?
SC: I never thought about [the neighborhood] being so close to the train tracks—but, yeah definitely, I will now. Thankfully the complex is set up so that unless there is a major derailment, it’s far enough away from the building. But even so, it’s kind of nerve-wracking.
I’ve heard trains [coming by] as recently as [Saturday] night [the night of the accident]. One was coming through blaring its horn.
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