East Palestine Families Living in Limbo Months After Fire
Tammy Webber | April 25, 2023 | The Associated Press
Jeff Drummond spends days and nights alone in a tiny room with fake wood paneling, two small beds and a microwave atop a mini refrigerator that serves as a nightstand — his pickup truck parked just outside the door at the roadside motel where he’s taken refuge since early February.
Shelby Walker bounces from hotel to hotel with her five children and four grandchildren while crews tear up railroad tracks and scoop out contaminated soil near their four-bedroom home.
Almost 3 months after a fiery Norfolk Southern train derailment blackened the skies, sent residents fleeing and thrust East Palestine into a national debate over rail safety, residents say they are still living in limbo. They’re unsure how or whether to move on from the accident and worry what will happen to them and the village where they have deep family roots, friendships and affordable homes.
“I have no idea how long we can continue to do this,” says Walker, while washing clothes at a laundromat.
Walker, 48, also works at a small hotel where many workers are staying, so is constantly reminded of the accident. She remembers the scorched rail tanker at her property line and a backyard flooded with water from the burn site. “Sometimes I just break down,” she says.
About half of East Palestine’s nearly 5,000 residents evacuated when, days after the Feb. 3 derailment, officials decided to burn toxic vinyl chloride from five tanker cars to prevent a catastrophic explosion.
Most have returned, though many complain about illnesses and worry about soil, water and air quality. Some are staying away until they’re sure it’s safe. Others, like Drummond, are not allowed back in their homes because of the ongoing cleanup.
The retired truck driver and Gulf War veteran misses mowing the lawn, puttering around his yard and chatting with regulars at the tavern next door.
“I have nothing here,” says Drummond, sitting on an orange plastic chair outside the Davis Motel in North Lima, Ohio. “So it’s trying to find something to keep yourself busy, to keep from going crazy.”
FEARING THE UNKNOWN
Norfolk Southern Railroad is paying for lodging for some families but won’t say how many still are out of their homes while the railroad excavates tens of thousands of tons of contaminated soil, a process the Environmental Protection Agency expects to take another 2-3 months. The railroad also must remove toxic chemicals from two creeks, which could take longer.
“I pledge that we won’t be finished until we make it right,” Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw told an Ohio rail safety committee last week.
The railroad also handed out $1,000 “inconvenience checks” to residents within the ZIP code that includes East Palestine and surrounding areas, but most did not qualify for further assistance and went home.
The EPA’s Mark Durno says continual air monitoring at the derailment site and in the community and soil tests in parks, on agricultural land and at other potentially affected areas have not yet detected concerning levels of any contaminants.
“Nothing jumped off page for us yet,” Durno says, adding that testing would continue just to be sure.
The railroad says testing shows drinking water is safe, though it’s establishing a fund for long-term drinking water protection. It’s also establishing funds for health care and to help sellers if their property value falls because of the accident.
But it’s the unknown that worries people.
