unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, United States, along
U.S. Route 411
U.S. Route 411 (US 411) is an alternate parallel-highway associated with US 11. US 411 extends for about from US 78 in Leeds, Alabama, to US 25W/ US 70 in Newport, Tennessee. US 411 travels through no ...
near the
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
border.
History
The border community's name is locational, being a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsstate abbreviations.
On March 28, 2000, Tennga was the site of a collision between
Murray County School District
The Murray County School District is a public school district in Murray County, Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United ...
school bus number 98-08 and a 33-car southbound
CSX
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
freight train led by GE C40-8 7580, which resulted in the deaths of three children at a railroad crossing.NTSB crash report The railroad roughly parallels U.S. 411, and is likewise a well-used shortcut around Chattanooga for traffic between
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
and
Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...
.
One of the students aboard the school bus reported that the bus driver, Rhonda Clure, did not follow the federal law to stop, flash hazard lights, open the doors and slide open the window to listen for the train. She also did not turn off the cassette tape off and just rolled right over the crossing without stopping. The crossing was on Liberty Church Road in Georgia.
CSX Train 7580 slams into the school bus at 6:40 am, with the impact being so violent that the bus body ripped apart from the frame and bent into a U-shape. The damage was similar to what happened at Fox River Grove in Illinois when a Metra train hit a bus that was stopped on the track by a red light on the other side.
Geography
Tennga is located at , at an
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum ยง Ver ...
of above sea level. The area is served by Rostex Airport, which has a single paved
runway
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...