Major streets in West Lincoln are now open again after Lincoln Fire and Rescue says 23 Burlington Northern Railroad cars derailed just after 2:00 a.m., some tipping over.

The incident happened just west of the Burlington Northern Railroad terminal building in the area of Highway 77 and West O Streets.

LFR Battalion Chief Bruce Sellon called the incident a minor derailment.

"It did involve 23 total cars, but the speed of the derailment was very low speed, so essentially a lot of the cars just rolled over," Sellon said.

Sellon says at least one of the cars contained liquid chlorine and there was concern of a leak, so hazmat crews were called in. Sellon says evacuating the area was a possibility until they determined there was no leak just before 6:00 a.m. and hazmat crews were called off the scene.

"We did have one concern with a chlorine car. It was fully loaded with 94 tons of chlorine, so we took some precautions," Sellon said. "We had a joint operation that went down to do some monoriting of that area. They determined that there was no leaking in that rail car."

Sellon says a strong odor in the air contributed to concerns of a possible chlorine spill, but he says they determined the source of the smell to be a nearby body of water.

Battalion Chief Pat Borer says they handled the situation very seriously because chlorine is a toxic and very dangerous chemical.

"Chlorine is a very toxic chemical. It seeks water, and so since the human body is composed of a large percentage of water, when it gets on the skin it burns. It burns very aggressively," Borer said. " If chlorine vapors find an ignition source, it can burn and will follow the chlorine back to the source and, under the right conditions, can explode. So there were a lot of concerns this morning, a lot of precautions taken because of the nature of what they were dealing with."

Along with LFR and Hazmat, Sellon says members of the Lincoln Police Department, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office, and the Health Department were also on the scene.

Sellon says Burlington Northern is now handling the situation and it could take them several days to clear up the incident.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Spokesman Steve Forsberg said said, "The cause is undetermined at this time, it's still under investigation. We're in the process of cleaning up the derailed cars and repairing any track damage that may have occurred."

Forsberg says since the derailment occurred in the rail yard, the main railways and shipments will not be affected.

West O Street was closed from Sun Valley Blvd to Hwy 77, and reopened around 4:00 a.m. Rosa Parks Way was also closed and reopened around 5:00 a.m. and Hwy 77 was closed in both directions between Rosa Parks Way and I-80, and reopened around 5:30 a.m.