Cleanup from the Friday morning 90-mile an hour wind blast that derailed 29 cars of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train near Fairmont in northern Oklahoma could be complete by Tuesday.
No injuries were reported in the early morning incident and hazardous chemicals were not involved.
Fairmont Fire Chief Joel Eggers indicated trains were running again on Saturday while crews attempted to upright some of the derailed cars and remove the freight they had been hauling.
“So we’ve had train traffic all day, I spoke with some train people last night and they’re going to be loading the car boxes out onto semis and then hauling them out,” said Eggers.
Enid and Garfield County Emergency Management Director Mike Honigsberg said winds were closed at 84 miles an hour at Vance Air Force base but reached about 90 mph at the time of the derailment in Fairmont. The exact strength of the winds could not be officially determined because there is no weather-recording device in the area, but radar indicated 90 mph winds.
