Bus carrying elderly evacuees burns; 24 dead
Fire engulfs vehicle carrying elderly from Houston area nursing home


DALLAS - The flight from the danger posed by Hurricane Rita turned deadly early Friday as a bus filled with elderly evacuees from the Houston area burst into flames on traffic-packed Interstate 45, leaving as many as 24 people dead, according to local officials.

"Deputies were unable to get everyone off the bus," Dallas County Sheriff's Department spokesman Don Peritz said. He said he believed 24 people were killed, but that number could change.

Separately, the Dallas County Fire Marshal's office told NBC News that 24 were killed in the tragedy.

The bus was carrying 38 residents and six employees of the Brighton Gardens nursing home in Bellaire, according to Sunrise Senior Living, the McLean, Va., company that owns the center.

The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched an investigation team from its office in Austin. But Peritz said early indications were that the bus, which had been on the road since Thursday, caught fire because of mechanical problems, possibly overheated brakes. Then passengers' oxygen tanks started exploding, turning the vehicle into an inferno, he said.

A blackened, burned out shell
The fire reduced the vehicle to a blackened, burned-out shell with large blue tarps covering bodies, surrounded by about 20 police cars and ambulances.

At least nine people were injured.

Sunrise said it was contacting family members of the victims.

“Our primary concern is for the safety of our residents and we are shocked and saddened that this event occurred during our evacuation,” Sunrise Chairman and chief executive Paul Klaasen said in a statement. The statement did not identify the bus company or give other details.

Tina Jones, a nurse from Ennis, was driving behind the bus when she saw it start to smoke and pull to the side of the road.

"I saw the smoke and then there was an explosions," said Jones, who pulled over and helped treat some passengers who suffered cuts and bruises. She said she saw at least six bodies.

"I'll probably go home and have a good cry," she said.

The deadly accident forced authorities to briefly shut the freeway, a main evacuation route from Houston, and created a 17-mile backup. Interstate 45 stretches more than 250 miles from Galveston through Houston to Dallas. The crash site is roughly 17 miles southeast of downtown Dallas.

Gov. Rick Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said traffic on I-45 would be diverted at Ennis, about 30 miles southeast of Dallas.

Wreckage moved aside
Authorities also were taking the unusual step of moving the wreckage and continuing the investigation in a remote location so the interstate could reopen for evacuees, Peritz said.

"You have thousands of people who are in their vehicles trying to escape," he said.

Nearly 2 million people along the Texas and Louisiana coasts were urged to get out of the way of Rita before it makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday. Friday morning, the freeways within Houston had cleared out, but it was still bumper to bumper traffic from the outskirts of Houston toward Austin and Dallas.

Heartbreaking. I guess the oxygen tanks many of them were using fueled the fire and created the explosions.

Check the Rita thread:
http://www.theskyiscrape.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 833#633833

that's horrible. all those people were probably thinking they were safe on the bus because they were getting away from the hurricane and then something like this happens.

The irony is nauseating.

Nope, no God.

When it turns out that their nursing home isn't even going to lose power in the storm, then you can throw up in your mouth.

well, it comes down to evacuate or not evacuate. it's a very sad thing that the seniors died, but that's a whole hindsight is 20 20 thing. it's just a plan bad accident, but it's exacerbated because it looks like the Houston and Galveston will not be hit as hard as thought they would be. it looks like they could have stayed put turned on the generator if power went out and all would have been ok. however, there's the argument that look what happened in new orleans. they thought they could make it in that one nursing home and a lot of seniors died. i heard a lady on cnn call in and say she was sitting right next to the bus on the freeway when its wheel caught on fire. she said she as well as many other people were yelling at the bus telling the people it was on fire. she said she actually went up in the bus and was telling people they needed to get off, but the people did not understand, were in wheelchairs, and needed to be carried off. she said about 12 people got off and then the fire got worse and the emergency workers could not get to it due to traffic.

it's a very sad occurrence, but atleast they tried to get them out this time. it's an unfortunate accident and it's a sad way to die. i told my dad they could have stayed and drowned but left and got bbq'ed. so sad....