A week before Christmas in 1992, the folks in Oakville were getting ready for the holiday season.
However, within hours, hundreds of residents would find themselves forced out of their homes due to one of the most severe railway accidents in the area’s history.
Around 9 p. m. on Friday, December 18, a CN freight train carrying hazardous materials rolled through Newton and neared Oakville. An axle on the engine started to fail and broke shortly after passing through the town.
Twenty-nine cars derailed. Some got damaged and began leaking chemicals into the snow.
The train was carrying ethylene oxide, vinyl chloride, sulfuric acid, and acetic anhydride. The risk of toxic fumes reaching the community created an urgent and alarming situation.
A noise in the night
Dorinda Holmes from Oakville was downstairs folding laundry when she heard what turned out to be a derailment.
“I could hear this loud banging, and I thought, ‘Oh, it must be them just shunting the cars around,’” Holmes recalled. “I didn’t think anything of it.”
Her husband, Murray Holmes, was working a shift at Mc Cain Foods in Portage la Prairie when he started hearing reports about a derailment.
When he got back to Oakville, he saw that the area near the village’s skating rinks was filled with emergency vehicles and flashing lights.
“It was all lit up down there just like daylight with vehicles,” he said. “You’d think there was a tournament and a bonspiel going on and a party in the parking lot because there were lights everywhere, emergency vehicles.”
The hustle made it clear something serious had occurred, but no one had told them they needed to evacuate yet.
“Nobody seemed to be stopping us and saying that we had to get out of town,” Holmes remembered. “So we went home and went to bed.”
A holiday spent away from home
The next afternoon, emergency officials began evacuating around 410 residents from Oakville.
The Holmes family gathered some clothes and their cat before heading over to stay with Dorinda’s parents in Portage for Christmas. Other families found shelter with relatives or friends or checked into local hotels.
Christmas trees and gifts were left behind as families waited for news.
Residents were briefly allowed back to grab presents and other items but uncertainty lingered. They had no idea when they could return permanently or what state their homes would be in once they did come back.
The extreme cold brought both benefits and challenges for crews working on site. Low temperatures kept some chemicals from boiling off but caused others to thicken up making them tougher to recover.
There were also worries about what might happen if different chemicals mixed together. In many instances, responders lacked information since those substances had never been combined under such conditions before.
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Students from Oakville welcomed elsewhere
The derailment also interrupted school for kids at Oakville School.
The students spent about a week attending classes in Portage where eight-year-old Jillian Holmes found an unexpected perk.
“I think a lot of the kids got over the fact that we were in different surroundings pretty fast when they heard that we had a hot lunch program,” she recalled.“It sure didn’t exist at Oakville School!”
“It was one small slice of normalcy during a Christmas season unlike any other that Oakville had ever seen.”
Returning home at last
Residents finally returned on Sunday January 10th , 1993 after being away for more than three weeks.
The coffee shop became a gathering spot as neighbors caught up with each other sharing tales about where they’d stayed while they were gone. No injuries or fatalities occurred due to this incident. Though scary moments filled everyone’s hearts with fear , it highlighted how strong this community truly is looking out for its own. The event disrupted Christmas celebrations , displaced an entire town , leaving many wondering if they’d ever come back home again. Over thirty years later , it still stands as one story defining our region. This story is part of CFRY’s 70th anniversary celebration looking back at seven decades worth remembering
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