Franklinton residents share confusion and alarm over hazmat evacuation
Jessica Kozek, who lives around half a mile from where a tractor trailer carrying lithium batteries caught fire Thursday, hurriedly packed four cats and a dog into her car that morning. She was never told to evacuate, but she said she planned to spend a few days with family in Toledo just in case.
“The last natural disaster that happened in (East Palestine), we’re not taking that chance. We don’t really trust that the city is gonna tell us exactly what’s happening until months later,” Kozek said.
Around 6 a.m. Thursday, Columbus Division of Fire crews responded to the 1600 block of Mckinley Avenue near Franklinton. A tractor trailer carrying lithium batteries was smoking, and later caught fire.
Columbus police officers evacuated people in a “one-mile area” around the fire at around 7:30 a.m., according to Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief Jeffrey Geitter.
However, evacuation boundaries provided by Geitter demarcate only a quarter square mile area. Resident Amanda Wolf said she was never officially informed about the incident nor was she told to evacuate, even though she lived less than a mile from the fire, she said in an e-mail to the Columbus Dispatch.
“Considering the potential risk and the fact that we live to the east, where the wind would be sending any smoke from the fire, I am extremely concerned,” she said.
Two residents of Princeton Ave, a street less than half a mile from the lithium fire, also said they were never told to leave.
Another resident on Chicago Avenue—also around half a mile from the fire— said he was home all morning and never had to evacuate.
Residents in the evacuation area, which encompassed multiple residential streets west of Central Avenue, described a morning disrupted by police roadblocks and instructions to leave their homes.
Resident Denise Mullins had trouble getting past blocked roads back to her home after dropping her granddaughter off at school. When she got there, a police officer told her she had to evacuate, she said.
“I’ve never seen that happen,” she said.
Shirley Devore, who lives a few streets over from Mullins, said a police officer told her to leave her home “in a reasonable amount of time” as a precautionary measure to prevent chemical inhalation.
“I got my dogs and got in my car. I just drove up to Hilliard and went to Mcdonald’s and just sat over in the parking lot and ate my breakfast, (my) dogs laid in the car, it was pretty cool,” she said.
Authorities lifted the evacuation order around 10 a.m., allowing residents to return to their homes. There were no reports of injuries, and police have not released additional details about how the tractor trailer caught fire. Nhart@dispatch.com @Partofmyhart