TEUTOPOLIS, Ill. (WAND)- Investigators are still reviewing the semi-truck crash on September 29th, 2023, in Teutopolis, Illinois. An NTSB report found a car passed, in a no passing zone on Route 40, forcing the semi to crash into a ditch. On board the truck was a deadly chemical, anhydrous ammonia.
The crash led to an evacuation order for the whole town of Teutopolis. Even though the evacuation order was lifted, one family was never able to return home.
The Elmore's would spend weekends fishing, taking care of animals and playing at the park with the Bryans. It was the picture-perfect childhood they wanted for 10-year-old Walker and 8-year-old Rose.
"We're not family by blood but we've known Kenny a long time and he's family," Megan Elmore told WAND News.
Kenny Bryan and Jordan Elmore met in the seventh grade and became fast friends.
"We started hanging out and then it was like you couldn't separate us. Every weekend we would go to each other's houses," Jordan Elmore explained.
Megan Elmore said when Bryan moved into their spare bedroom, years later, he became like a brother to her as well.
"The night of the accident, right before he came home, he called me to ask me if I was home and he said, 'if you're home, do you need anything from town?' And I didn't need anything, so he just came on home," Megan Elmore
The night of September 29th, 2023, their unconventional family was torn apart.
"I have a buddy on IDOT that actually called me and was checking on me, making sure I was alright," Jordan Elmore said.
That phone call turned their lives upside down. Jordan was out of town, at a shooting tournament, when he learned there was a semi crash near his house.
"Jordan called me, it was probably about 9:00 and said 'hey don't go home when you get back to Effingham, don't go home, stay with dad', 'why what's going on?', there was an accident by our house and it was an anhydrous tanker," Megan Elmore explained.
Megan was also out of town that weekend, but her thoughts immediately went to Kenny Bryan.
"I knew that Kenny was supposed to be on his way home with his kids. It was his weekend with his kids," Megan Elmore told WAND News.
Megan scrambled to pull up her Ring Doorbell app, to see if she could find them.
"I saw Kenny's car in the driveway, but I didn't see any people," Megan explained.
They were both frantic, calling and hoping for an answer.
"I called and called and called him and he didn't answer. I never did see him, I never saw anything," Megan said.
They later learned, Kenny had just pulled in the driveway with his kids, when the tanker crashed. Thousands of gallons of anhydrous ammonia started to spill out, and all three died almost instantly.
"He got hit with the anhydrous, its hard to think about. But he didn't even have time to run," Megan added. "Everything that was on that property died when that spill happened."
Kenny, Walker and Rose Bryan were all laid to rest on October 6th, 2023.
The Elmores have not been able to return to their home, the scene of the crash, almost three months later.
"How do we know its going to be safe to go back to? Who can tell us- yes it is safe? There is nobody that can tell us that for sure," Megan said.
The Illinois EPA is overseeing remediation at the crash site. A contractor is hauling away soil from the Elmore's house, that may have been contaminated from the spill.
"They have to get rid of all the dirt that's been contaminated from this. They're digging it up and putting it in dumpsters and hauling it to St. Louis to have it burnt in a hazardous place," Jordan explained.
Anhydrous ammonia, means ammonia without water, so the chemical is immediately attracted to water.
"So, the moment its released-- it's trying to bind with water, wherever it is, including your skin, your eyes, your mucus membranes- and that's what makes it so dangerous," Dr. Salah Issa, an assistant professor of Agriculture and Industrial Safety at the University of Illinois, told WAND News.
Dr. Issa said water essentially neutralizes the chemical.
"It reduces the danger, it dilutes it, it removes it. It removes it, on your body, when you're dumping a lot of water, it pushes it out," Dr. Issa explained.
But that could have dangerous consequences.
"Eventually its reacting either with the water, the humidity in the atmosphere, or when its raining. So it is interacting with water at some level, and once it interacts with water, it falls down to the ground," Dr. Issa said.
This means it could end up in ground water. IDPH sampled private wells near the crash site, soon after the spill, and found no dangerous levels of the chemical. Staff are now waiting for the results from new testing done last month.
"If they can prove to me that its safe- we'll do it. I don't think anybody knows because nothing like this volume has every happened close to a house before," Jordan Elmore said.
The EPA's Superfund Technical Assessment & Response Team, or START, also conducted air testing in the area. They found 0.2 ppm of anhydrous ammonia in the air Saturday evening, allowing officials to lift the evacuation order for Teutopolis. The chemical becomes deadly at 2,500 ppm- which means at least that much gas was in the air at the time of the accident.
Despite reassuring test results, the Elmores are concerned their home may still not be safe.
Dr. Issa said the family can follow decontamination protocol as an extra precaution. That means washing down an surface with soapy water, that may have been exposed to the chemical vapors.
The Elmore family also lost livestock and eight dogs in the spill.
Elmore family dogs lost due to the chemical spill
WAND News will continue following this developing story.
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