‘Déjà vu’: A train derailment 40 years ago holds clues for East Palestine’s future

The sizzling wreckage of a derailed train. Toxic smoke pouring over a small town. Fearful residents fleeing their homes. The images of East Palestine, Ohio, could only be described as “déjà vu” for Bruce Bennett, a retired judge in Louisiana.

In darkness on the morning of Sept. 28, 1982, a train jumped its tracks and sent more than 30 tanker cars filled with hazardous chemicals or fuel crashing near a commercial strip of Livingston, Louisiana, about 20 miles east of Baton Rouge. Chemical leaks and smoke plagued the area for days.

“The cars were sitting there burning and smoldering, five, six days after the derailment,” Bennett said. “One of the cars just blew up. The damn thing went 600 feet in the air.”