Topic: News
GRANITEVILLE -- It is a day that changed me personally and Graniteville directly.
January 6, 2005.
2:33 a.m.
The exact time in which two trains collided when one of the trains wasn't even moving. People in that town said they heard a loud BOOM as if something had exploded.
When I woke up at 6 a.m., I was stunned at what I saw. USC Aiken was now a makeshift ER.
At 7 a.m., then I knew it was something far worse.
That is when I knew that lives 28 miles apart was going to be altered forever. The 5,400 people in Graniteville had to levae their homes. And for me and my best friend, we knew that this horrible event was going to be forever linked with her birthday.
By the time noon had gotten here, we got word of casualties.
At 8 p.m., that figure stood at eight people dead.
By 2007, the number stood at 11 people dead. Ten Americans and one Canadian.
And what has happened in Columbia? Business as usual.
Our incompetent state government still as incompetent as ever for the past five years. They have offered only meager help to the people in Graniteville. And it is a disgrace. And the State of South Carolina should hang their heads in shame.
And when you look at what our officials in Columbia has been doing to help us out, it is easy to see why the residents of Graniteville or Aiken County don't want to talk about the incident.
This is also one more reason as to why we need to change the faces of our do-nothing state government.
Today, let's remember the people of Graniteville, even if our state government doesn't.
