Thursday 12 a.m. update: Survivors of the Biloxi, Miss., bus crash who returned to Bastrop on Wednesday night looked weary but relieved as they arrived to find several members of their communities greeting them with applause and welcoming them home.
The eight people who arrived were among the 49 passengers who were on the charter bus that was taking several members of the Bastrop Senior Center to a Biloxi casino when it was struck by a train Tuesday. They slowly stepped out of a bus — different from the one in the deadly Biloxi crash — at First National Bank of Bastrop, off Texas 71, before family and friends took them home.
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Austin resident Justine Nygren, who said she was one of the first passengers to get off the bus in Biloxi before the train struck it, said she was glad to be home.
“I hope we’ll see everyone else here soon,” she said, referring to the many passengers who are still hospitalized. Four people died and 35 were injured in the incident.
Bastrop resident Cliff Wright, 70, hugged Nygren after she stepped off and helped her to her car. Wright said he is planning to see his wife, 70-year-old Carol Wright, who is still in intensive care at a Mississippi hospital with eight broken ribs, on Thursday, now that Carol’s son had arrived to drive with him.
“She was on the bus trying to get people off when the train hit,” Cliff Wright said. “With the older folks, they can’t just jump up.”
Friends Geraldine Castillo, 74, and Pat Malerk, 68, hugged the bus passengers as they got off. Malerk and Castillo knew the majority of the people who went on the trip, including Debbie Orr, 62, who died from injuries suffered in the crash.
“She was full of energy all the time,” Castillo said. “She was so bubbly. We’re going to miss her so much.”
“You could pick Debbie out of a crowd,” Malerk said. “She was always wearing fun clothes and hats.”
Castillo and Malerk said those who were involved at the senior center were devastated to hear about the crash.
“These people are like your family,” said Castillo, who volunteers in the kitchen every week for the center’s Thursday lunches. “When they die, it’s a huge loss.”
CONTINUING COVERAGE: Biloxi bus ride ended in frantic scramble as train approached
Shortly before the bus with the survivors arrived, the family of Lockhart residents Kenneth and Peggy Hoffman, two of the victims who died in the crash, released a statement commenting on the couple's death.
“Yesterday, our family suffered a tragic loss, which is difficult to fathom and hard to bear,” the Hoffmans’ family said. “We lost two incredible people we were privileged to call mother and father, Mawmaw and Pawpaw, and more than that, our teachers, coaches, mentors, and touchstones.”
The statement was shared Wednesday evening by the Lockhart school district, where Kenneth and Peggy Hoffman worked for years.
The couple devoted their lives to helping their children, and the children of Lockhart, understand the importance of education and being connected with their communities, the family said. When in public, former students and teachers would often approach the Hoffmans “to share what an impact they had on their lives,” they said.
“We will miss his sweet, gentle soul and her steady level-headedness, which anchored us in the toughest storms,” the statement said. “We cannot understand what it means to be in this world without them, but we know they would have us continue doing the very things they’ve always taught us to do: love God and love one another.”
The family will hold a visitation for the Hoffmans Monday from 5 to 7 p.m. at the McCurdy Funeral Home at 105 E. Pecan St. in Lockhart, the statement said. Their funeral will also be held in Lockhart Tuesday at 10 a.m. at First United Methodist Church, at 313 W. San Antonio Street.
Instead of sending flowers, the Hoffmans' family said donations can be sent to The Education Foundation for the Lockhart school district at 105 S. Colorado, or www.foundation4lisd.com.
7:40 p.m. update: Attorneys representing the surviving family of a Lockhart woman who died after a train crashed into a charter bus in Biloxi, Miss., laid out a case for a civil suit at a press conference in Bastrop on Wednesday evening.
Attorneys Mikal Watts and Ricky Reyes, who represent the estate of Peggy Hoffman, have filed a lawsuit against the tour bus company, Echo Tours, the bus driver and the train company, CSX Transportation. The attorneys said they're willing to represent anyone seeking legal help from the fatal crash, which killed four Texas residents.
“It’s an outrage what happened. None of these people should’ve died. None of these people should’ve been injured... we’re going to see to it that these people did not die in vain,” Watts said.
The lawsuit was filed in Dallas County and seeks damages in excess of $75,000.
The attorneys said 16 CSX Transportation trains have crashed into vehicles at that exact intersection in the past.
2:50 p.m. update: The four people who were killed after a train hit their bus in Biloxi, Miss., have been identified, said Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove.
The Harrison County coroner said the following people were killed in the crash: Kenneth Hoffman, 82, of Lockhart; Peggy Hoffman, 73, of Lockhart; Clinton Havran, 79, of Sealy; and Deborah Orr, 62, of Bastrop.
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
The Hoffmans and Havran died at the scene, Hargrove said. Orr died around 6 p.m. at Merit Health hospital in Biloxi after undergoing surgery for her injuries, he said.
Orr was on the senior center's board, said Barbara Adkins, president of the Bastrop Senior Center, which organized the trip. Orr was one of the activity coordinators who helped plan the trip.
Her husband Tim Orr was on the bus with her, and he is in intensive care at a hospital, Adkins said. She did not know what his injuries are.
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2:25 p.m. update: The Bastrop Police Department has confirmed that three people who died Tuesday afternoon when their charter bus was hit by a train in Biloxi, Miss., were from the Austin area.
Chief Steve Adcock said he could not release or confirm any of the names of those involved yet, but said two were from Lockhart, and one was from Bastrop. A fourth victim was from Sealy.
Friends and colleagues had already identified two of the victims as former Lockhart ISD administrators Ken and Peggy Hoffman. The victims from Bastrop and Sealy, however, have not been publicly named.
Adcock said around 10 people who were on the charter bus Tuesday had boarded another bus in Mississippi on Wednesday afternoon to head back to Bastrop.
Adcock said the bus is expected to arrive at the First National Bank of Bastrop between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., and invited members of the community to greet them and show their support.
“This community, this county, is very resilient. We’ve been through a lot of stuff, and we pull together,” Adcock said.
The First National Bank is located at 489 Texas 71.
1 p.m. update: A leading official with the National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday that the federal investigation into the fatal crash that killed four people, including a Lockhart couple, on Tuesday in Mississippi will focus on the history of the rail crossing.
NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said Wednesday that since 1976, 17 crashes involving trains have occurred at the rail crossing where a freight train hit a charter bus carrying 49 passengers who were part of a trip organized by the Bastrop Senior Center. Crashes in 2003 and 1983 involved fatalities, Sumwalt said.
The charter bus, owned and operated by Dallas-based Echo Transportation got stuck on the steep grade of the railroad crossing before it was hit by a train operated by CSX. It is unclear how long the bus was stuck on the tracks.
“Determining the length that that bus sat on those tracks will be critical to this investigation,” Sumwalt said.
Preliminary information from the NTSB found that the train was travelling 26 mph when emergency brakes were applied about 510 feet from the bus. The three-locomotive, 52-car train was traveling at 19 mph when it hit the bus, pushing it 203 feet before it stopped, Sumwalt said.
The NTSB does not investigate all collisions involving trains. However, the fact that just two months ago a similar, non-fatal crash occurred at the same rail crossing led the agency to launch an investigation, Sumwalt said.
Investigators were at the scene gathering what Sumwalt called “perishable evidence” that will be taken back to Washington D.C. Meanwhile, local officials are conducting a concurrent investigation independent from but cooperating with the NTSB.
Ahead will be interviews with passengers, the engineer and conductor of the CSX train. The NTSB will also attempt to interview the bus’s driver, but he is not required to speak with investigators, Sumwalt said.
The health and driving records of the bus driver will be examined as well as the safety record for Echo Transportation. Sumwalt said investigators will also survey the graded railroad crossing.
Sumwalt said it is probable that the train had a forward facing camera on the lead locomotive and said that passengers of the bus might have cellphone video of the crash.
SEE WHAT HAPPENED: Photos from the Biloxi bus tragedy
12:15 p.m. update: An Austin-area witness recounted to the American-Statesman how the charter bus she was riding on got stuck at a Biloxi railroad crossing before being struck by a freight train Tuesday.
Mary Lucas, the organizer of the trip that was ferrying a group from Bastrop County, said she was near the front of the bus when it became stuck on the tracks.
“(The bus driver) just got hung up,” Lucas said. “The bus was too low.”
She said she could not estimate the amount of time from when the bus was stuck to when the railroad crossing began warning of the approaching train.
She said the driver “opened the door and yelled for us to get off the bus. I got off and we ran as far as I could.”
She said family members are arriving in Biloxi and are assisting other bus passengers. Meanwhile, she said, some of those who were on the trip to Biloxi will be boarding a bus that is set to leave for Central Texas at 1 p.m.
“Everybody is holding up pretty well,” she said. “We feel so bad about losing our friends.”
Meanwhile, a woman at Gulfport Biloxi International Airport about noon had just flown in from Los Angeles and said her sister from the Bastrop area was killed and that her brother-in-law was critically injured in the crash.
The woman asked that her name not be used because the man has not yet been told that his wife was killed.
She said she was on the way to the hospital to be with other family members to tell him. She said it is her understanding that her sister was exiting the bus when the train struck it.
9:20 a.m. update: The 35 people from the Austin area who were injured when a train slammed into their charter bus on Tuesday afternoon in Biloxi, Miss., are being cared for in three Mississippi hospitals.
According to the Sun Herald, 11 patients were taken to Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula after the crash, two of whom were listed in critical condition. Ocean Springs Hospital received 11 as well, three of whom were in critical condition. The remaining 13 people who were injured were taken to Merit Health.
Investigators are still gathering details on the crash, but eyewitnesses said the bus was stuck on the railroad track for some time before it was hit.
The street-rail crossing where the accident occurred, on Main Street in Biloxi just north of Esters Boulevard, has yellow “low ground clearance” warning signs on both sides of the track. The sign, a standard design from the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, shows what appears to be the trailer of a tractor-trailer rig bottoming out on the tracks.
Based on Google street-view, the track, which runs east-west throughout Biloxi and is crossed by about 40 city streets, is at higher elevation than Main Street on either side. The elevation difference appears particularly marked north of the tracks, the direction in which the bus was traveling when it came to a stop across the tracks and then was struck several minutes later by the eastbound train.
As is the case with all bus one of the road-rail crossings in Biloxi, the Main Street crossing is “at-grade,” meaning that vehicles must drive over the tracks.
The crossing is with equipped flashing signals and arms that lower to bar vehicle traffic as a train approaches. But based on witness accounts, in this case the bus appears to have been on the tracks for five to 10 minutes before the CSX train collided with it.
8:20 a.m. update: State Rep. John Cyrier told the American-Statesman that a National Transportation Safety Board official who was heavily involved in the response to the Lockhart balloon crash that killed 16 last year is traveling to Biloxi, Miss., to help oversee the investigation.
He said that NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt has promised a thorough investigation and that Sumwalt reached out to Cyrier after learning victims were from Bastrop County and Lockhart.
"I've got full confidence in the NTSB and the investigators," Cyrier said.
Earlier: The number of deaths after a charter bus traveling from the Austin area was struck by a freight train in Biloxi, Miss., on Tuesday remained at four on Wednesday morning.
Biloxi Police Sgt. Jackie Rhodes said investigators are still at the scene of the crash gathering evidence and waiting for federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to arrive.
Authorities in Biloxi have yet to release the names of the four who were killed, but officials in Lockhart confirmed that two of the dead were former Lockhart school district administrators Ken and Peggy Hoffman.
Police are still trying to figure out exactly how long the bus was sitting on the tracks before it was hit around 2:15 p.m. Tuesday and dragged nearly 300 feet before coming to a stop.
Authorities are expected to release more information on the crash, including the identities of the victims, later Wednesday.
