GRANITEVILLE - Avondale Mills officials expected to truck in three gargantuan portable boilers Friday to replace a chlorine-crippled steam plant and started cleaning contamination from the Gregg Division plant, where two workers were killed by poison gas released in the wreck of Norfolk Southern Train 192.
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Company officials continued their push to resurrect their Graniteville operations despite heavy chlorine contamination that destroyed computers in the company's data processing center and inflicted heavy damage to the Stevens Steam Plant, the energy engine for the complex immediately surrounding the wreck.
To provide power, Steven Felker Sr., the company's principal owner and chief executive officer, said the three giant boilers will be trucked in from Chattanooga, Tenn., and could be fired up within three days, once the company has clearance to resume operations. Not only was the steam plant contaminated by corrosive chlorine, it also was damaged by boiler fires that continued to burn - spreading to coal chutes - after employees fled the building, Mr. Felker said.
They were braced to expect the across-the-board damage from corrosive chlorine that can eat up delicate circuit boards, wiring, telephone lines, electrical systems and controls. But as they inspected their facilities, they found some had only light damage while others were hit hard by chlorine gas that killed nine people, including six company employees.
"We've had a week to think about this and were prepared for the worst and found it was way short of that," Mr. Felker said.
Mr. Felker said chlorine didn't damage sensitive automated machinery and controls in the company's Gregg Division plant, located 500 yards north of the wreck.
The company will focus its early restart efforts on the Gregg Division plant, which produces finished fabric used in slacks and other garments, and yarn-producing operations at the Hickman Division plant.
Chlorine contamination is so heavy at the Woodhead Division plant that, as of Thursday, company officials couldn't get in to inspect damage, Mr. Felker said. But that plant is less crucial to the company's core business because it produces coated specialty fabrics for awnings and foul-weather clothing.
Avondale Mills, which also owns textile factories in Alabama and Georgia, including a plant in Augusta, is running at "full capacity," Mr. Felker said. He said customers are standing by the company.
"Our customers are going to support us," he said.
"They're not going to run off somewhere."
Reach Jim Nesbitt at (803) 648-1395, ext. 111, or jim.nesbitt@augustachronicle.com.
Special Section: Graniteville Train Wreck
On January 6, 2005, a Norfolk Southern Corp. freight train carrying chemicals hit a parked train near an Avondale Mills plant in Graniteville, South Carolina. The impact caused poisonous chlorine gas to leak from three of the moving train's cars. Nine people were killed and more than 5,000 people were evacuated from the site.
For complete coverage of the Graniteville train wreck, visit our special section.
