Thoughts with Tim: The situation in East Palestine
I considered writing the article last week on the train wreck in East Palestine. The reason I did not is because I didn’t have any more information than any of you and I was not sure how much of it I trusted about what I have heard. I have one specific part of this ongoing drama that I want to comment on, but before I do, I want to quickly give you the rundown of what happened.
On the evening of Feb 3, a train carrying hazardous chemicals was enroute from Madison, Illinois to Conway Pennsylvania. One of the little towns it would pass through was East Palestine, Ohio, a town of less than 5,000 people. St Marys has about 8,500 people, so that gives you some perspective on size. It is in a part of the state that is much more rural than where we are, so they are more spread out than we are here in St Marys.
After the train derailed, a fire broke out and a heroic local effort was made to put it out. 38 train cars were off the tracks with several more train cars still on the tracks that could not be moved. The National Guard and the EPA were dispatched and arrived on scene to do what they could to contain the situation. The fire was not able to be put out and there was one car that was feared would explode and throw shrapnel all over the immediate area. To prevent this from happening, a controlled burn was initiated to release the onboard chemicals to relieve the pressure.
The people of East Palestine were evacuated, and every effort was made to get people out of the way of the blast radius as well as the toxic smoke. Many reports of chemicals in the water have been made and it will be years before we know the extent of the damage.
Like many of you, I am afraid of the long term fall out from this. But I am neither an expert on the environment nor am I a doctor. But I am praying for those people in the immediate area and all of those who could be affected by what has happened. I don’t know enough to comment any more about that.
But there are two things that has bothered me. First, the day after this trainwreck, Feb 4, was the day the spy balloon was shot down over the Atlantic and the news cycle went wild with the story. That means that the trainwreck didn’t hit the news until a few days later. The controlled burn was already in full swing before any news about the train wreck hit the media because they were hyperventilating over a balloon that should have been shot down days if not a week prior. Whoever was monitoring the footage shot by the spy balloon probably got footage of the trainwreck because the trajectory of the balloon would have taken it very close to that area. The balloon and the trainwreck had nothing at all to do with each other. That means that we had two disasters happening at the same time and neither one of them were handled properly.
But here is the part where I have to choose my words carefully. Now Joe Biden has shown up in Ukraine and promised incredible amounts of money to fund their war effort. This promise was made and we expect that the disruption to the people of East Palestine is worth $1,000. A town in Ohio was basically nuked and we put them in a hotel in that area for like 12 nights and that is all they get? How many of these poor people are out of work right now because their places of employment have closed? How much clean water could we produce for the price of a couple of the tanks we are shipping to Ukraine?
The lesson I have relearned from this series of failures is that we should not be waiting around for government to save us when they seem unwilling to even help us. I am sure there are reasons why Ukraine needs our help and they are probably good reasons. But my heat goes out to the people of East Palestine. So instead of being angry at all this, I decided to do something about it. I researched a number of places to give help, and this is the best one I found. Do a Google search for The Bright Side Project. They are in Salem, OH which is not far from East Palestine. When you go to their website, they have a donation page that comes up immediately. I donated $100 there because my heart goes out to the people of that community.
We should not be looking to the government to come and save us. Not only should we not give up our responsibilities to care for each other, but the government has made a very clear statement of where their priorities lie.