IN EAST PALESTINE, A MIX OF HOPE, FRUSTRATION
As NTSB’s deeper crash insights and Norfolk Southern’s reinvestments keep trickling in, uncertainty among citizens lingers
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — For resident Russell Murphy, the ongoing stress and yearning for new information has been exhausting.
Nearly five months after Norfolk Southern’s 150-car Train 32N crashed in his community, he and many others still have questions about how the derailment unfolded, the handling of the cleanup, what could have prevented the wreck and what will happen next.
That’s why he spent over eight hours sitting in the East Palestine High School gymnasium Thursday listening in on the National Transportation Safety Board’s hearing on the derailment.
“It’s a shame because it feels like if you want to get away as a resident, it almost does you a disservice,” he said. “You think you’re going to miss something, that you might get a little crumb of information that you’ve got to try to process.”
The National Transportation Safety Board held investigative hearings Thursday and Friday as part of the ongoing investigation into the Feb. 3 accident. The night prior to the hearings, community members had an opportunity to ask NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy questions that ranged from seeking information on railroad speed limits to advocating for reforms.
In the public hearings at the end of the week, residents like Mr. Murphy could only listen as witnesses spoke, but it allowed them to gain deeper insight into what led to the train’s fiery crash and the key decisions authorities made in the early hours of the disaster that led to thousands evacuating their homes. The NTSB sessions offered some hope, too, that the accident may spur key safety changes in the future.
“The word fear-mongering has been thrown around like crazy, but if it wasn’t for the residents who wanted to speak up and tell their story, I don’t think
we would have this,” Mr. Murphy said. “It is almost unprecedented that they come to a small town or a village and hold a hearing, and I commend them for that.”
Emergency responders, scientists, contractors, Norfolk Southern representatives, rail unions and chemical manufacturers delivered testimony over the course of two days.
Emergency response reviewed
On Thursday, testimony centered around the emergency response in the initial hours and days as the derailed continued to burn, and around what led officials to vent and burn five cars containing 115,580 gallons of vinyl chloride. The burn created a billowing black plume that traveled for miles and prompted a widespread evacuation that extended beyond East Palestine and across the nearby Ohio border into Pennsylvania. Friday’s testimony addressed issues with wheel bearings that failed on the train and how officials could have caught the defect earlier.
During the Wednesday community meeting hosted by the NTSB, Ms. Homendy said the board focuses on fact-finding, not liability or blame. But East Palestine resident Kelly Lundt is hoping for accountability.
“I really don’t want to call it an accident,” she said. “It was negligence.”
The NTSB initiated the investigation three days after the train crashed to determine the probable cause of the derailment and issue safety recommendations to help prevent future accidents. The board also launched a separate review into Norfolk’s safety culture.
“They want to get to the bottom of it,” Ms. Lundt said. “They want to get answers for us, and it’s appreciated because we still don’t have a lot of answers. And I think that’s why, unfortunately, the community is divided from the people who are sick and want answers to the people who are healthy and just want it to go away.”
The questioning revealed major lapses in communication, which left first responders without key information on what the cars contained for an hour to several hours. Norfolk Southern sent its contractor, consulting firm CTEH, the same information through a document known as a “train consist” in about 10 minutes.
“It wasn’t until late that night or the next morning that Idid learn by myself what was contained on those cars,” Eric Brewer, Beaver County’s Emergency Management coordinator, testified. “Personally, I did not know that there were any hazardous material chemicals.”
For Ms. Lundt, the testimony showed that the local emergency responders felt the burden of seeking information about the train, while also trying to extinguish the blaze growing in front of them.
“We’re a small community and most of the volunteer firefighters, I know most of them, are good men and women,” she said. “They work hard, they raise their families and they do this in their spare time. It just seems like this situation was larger than us or any community locally could handle.”
The fear of the unknown still underscores life in East Palestine, Ms. Lundt said. Normal activities like her kids’ track and basketball games don’t feel the same as fewer and fewer people attend. People are moving — five immediate neighbors came to mind.
She’s not gardening anymore. A few weeks ago, she threw out all her raised garden beds because she’s not eating her berries and grapes this year. She also keeps air purifiers all over her house, in the living room and in each bedroom.
People remain leery about the local water.
“Bottled water is so hard to come by,” she said. “As soon as the donation is brought in, it’s gone.”
And in the background, the blaring sounds of trains, which run about every nine minutes, remain an everpresent reminder of all that’s changed.
“It’s like you’re waiting for the next catastrophe every time you hear the whistle,” she said.
East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick said during the hearing that no centralized communication exists within local jurisdictions, and a central 911 command center would make a difference in the future. He also pushed for more training and federal funding for small departments, most of which rely on volunteers. Officials told the panel that volunteers receive minimal hazmat training.
Burning off the chemical
The hearing also addressed an issue long contested by residents, including Laurie Harmon. It’s what she calls the “uncontrolled” release.
Officials at the time said temperatures were rising in five vinyl chloride cars, so creating a “controlled release” could avert an explosion, which they proceeded with on the following Monday. Ms. Harmon said it looked like an “atomic bomb” went off in the area, and she has always been skeptical of the decision.
“They were going to do the one tanker that was actually critical and may blow,” Ms. Harmon said. “Then they’re blowing up five. Our health risks with one vinyl chloride tanker being blown up would have been a little less or a lot less. They failed miserably on the open burn.”
Mr. Drabick said he was responsible for moving forward with the vent and burn — but he said the railroad gave him only 13 minutes to make the call. He said the command, which comprises The Village of East Palestine, Beaver County Emergency Management Coordinator, U.S. EPA, Columbiana County Emergency Management Agency, Ohio EPA and Norfolk Southern Corporation, agreed it was the “least bad option.”
“The final yes was given by me, based on the consensus by everybody in the unified command,” he said.
Officials from Oxy Vinyls, a Dallas-based company that produced the vinyl chloride, testified that they believed
“I really pray that this is the tragedy that makes a difference. I don’t want this to just happen and no good to come out of it.” — Misti Allison, East Palestine resident
the chemical remained stable inside those cars, and evidence did not suggest a chemical reaction was happening. Oxy Vinyls representatives, including Paul Thomas, said that the company attempted to let the railroad know before officials went forward with the vent and burn, but Norfolk Southern didn’t convey that to the decision-makers.
“We made it clear, based on our expertise of the chemical properties of our product, that stabilized VCM would be unlikely to spontaneously polymerize,” Mr. Thomas said.
That was the first time Mr. Murphy heard the explosion risk being somewhat downplayed.
The NTSB also presented a graph that showed the temperatures in one of the vinyl chloride tankers were on a downward trend before the chemical release.
Mr. Murphy wonders if there might have been a different outcome if Norfolk Southern officials had relayed all the information they had.
“Would it have changed something?” he said. “Would it have changed the decision? It very well could have. Just a lot of unknowns, and I think that’s just going to continue to happen.”
Since the derailment, Norfolk Southern says it has provided $62.3 million in community support, including $7.7 million toward initiatives for first responders and provided $7.5 million to support nearby communities in Pennsylvania.
The rail company also announced June 20 that the East Palestine City Council had approved its plans for revitalizing the City Park, including a new aquatic center, playgrounds, baseball fields and amphitheater.
But Ms. Harmon said residents across Ohio and Pennsylvania still pay the price of the railroad’s actions: “My home is filled with these toxic chemicals, cancercausing agents. It’s in our environment. We are breathing it in every day.”
What caused the crash
On Friday, the board addressed the cause of the crash, issues around the lack of inspections done by Norfolk and how detectors designed to catch such defects didn’t prevent the accident.
A preliminary report the NTSB released Feb. 13 showed that an overheated bearing was the likely culprit for the crash. It detailed how the train passed through three temperature sensors designed to alert problems like the hot bearing that eventually failed.
Jared Hopewell, senior director of communications and signals at Norfolk Southern, said the third sensor detected critical temperatures on one of the cars and alerted the crew. While the train crew enacted procedures to safely stop the train, it was too late, he testified.
The hearing showed that railroads may need to update how they look for defects in wheel bearings, going beyond hotbox detectors that professor Constantine Tarawneh of the University of Texas described as “inefficient.” She testified that acoustic bearing detectors are a better method for detecting railroad defects.
One NTSB board member said he believed there are only 16 or 17 working acoustic detectors found on railways across the country.
During Wednesday’s Q&A, many took the opportunity to express concerns around railroad safety, along with their support for solutions to prevent the same tragedy from happening again.
One attendee asked about the train’s speed at the time of the derailment. Ms. Homendy said the train was running at about 35-40 mph earlier on, and then about 47 mph when it derailed, confirming Norfolk was under the limit of 50 mph.
Railroads set their own speed limits, she added.
One speaker asked why Norfolk Southern has not yet conducted a full site assessment, as an EPA official told her it’s been a “back and forth” process.
Misti Allison, an East Palestine resident, said she appreciated the NTSB’s decision to host a public hearing in a reeling East Palestine, something not done in every investigation.
“The anxiety is still real,” she said. “There’s just a lot going on. Typically, this wouldn’t be our summer plans to go to an NTSB hearing. You know, before this, I had never been to a Senate committee hearing, let alone testify.”
Mrs. Allison spoke before the Senate in March to advocate for short- and long-term health care monitoring and assistance, home value protection and an actionable economic development plan.
Politics wasn’t her arena. She works for a software company and serves on the town’s library board. Her husband owns his own business and coaches basketball. They’re raising two young kids. The derailment pushed her into becoming an advocate, too.
She is hopeful for the NTSB’s recommendations to come and ultimately, “commonsense safety legislation.”
“I really pray that this is the tragedy that makes a difference,” she said. “I don’t want this to just happen and no good to come out of it.”