Eagle Feathers #202 – Near Disasters

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

On the morning of April 1, 1980, a Boston news station aired an April fool’s joke. It was reminiscent of Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds, and it totally backfired. The station told their listeners that the Blue Hills were volcanically erupting, spewing lava in all directions This caused hundreds of viewers in the Dorchester and Milton areas to be panic-stricken. Later that night, the news station apologized.

Two days later, on April 3, 1980, the day began as a normal spring morning. Jimmy Carter was President. Theatres were featuring Sissy Spacek in Coal Miners Daughter, John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in Grease, and Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog.

That day, there was another news report that was no joke. It aired forty years ago this past week. The City of Somerville went through an unexpected emergency and came through miraculously with flying colors.

It began early in the morning on Holy Thursday with a freight train collision in the Boston and Maine Railroad Yard near Joy and Washington Streets. It resulted in the worst chemical accident and spill in Massachusetts’ history. A ruptured tank-car leaked over 6,000 gallons of its 13,000-gallon container of the chemical Phosphorus-Trichloride.

When it came in contact with moisture, the chemical turned into a vaporous, toxic grey cloud. It was carried with the wind over an area from Lechmere Station in Cambridge, north to the Mystic River, and from Union Square, east to Charlestown. Until firefighters, railroad, and construction crews ultimately contained it, this area was in grave jeopardy of a huge disaster.

Eugene Brune, with only three months under his belt as mayor and in his own words, received his “baptism by fire” at this incident. He first ordered the evacuation of the area near the incident and later expanded it to 1.5 square miles. Sixteen thousand citizens were sheltered inside or moved to safer locations that day. He addressed the television, radio, and press, and by the end of the crisis, the mayor had worked with state, federal, and local agencies.

Somerville and other police departments closed local roads in the affected area that included Route 93 and the Mystic/Tobin Bridge. Massive traffic jams occurred while drivers tried to avoid the area. All local highways were closed intermittently until the next day. The Boston and Lowell trains and Green Line trains to Lechmere were shut down.

From the epicenter in Union Square to Winter Hill, scarfs, bandanas, and rags, were worn over faces. Eerily, the uniform of that day was much like that of today’s masks and sheltering in place.