Jenna Giannios, a 39-year-old wedding photographer, has been coughing non-stop for a week and a half. She has stopped drinking tap water and says she is uncomfortable taking a shower in her house. She is afraid that the water that runs through the pipes in her house is contaminated. She is not the only one in a constant state of unease after a freight train loaded with highly toxic chemicals derailed on February 3 near East Palestine, a small town of 4,700 people on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Two weeks later, the scenario is still gruesome.
Of the nearly 150 carriages on the Atlanta-based Norfolk Southern company's train, 38 derailed, causing a subsequent fire that affected 12 carriages, some loaded with highly carcinogenic products that eventually spilled into a nearby river. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources said the chemical spill had killed about 3,500 small fish along more than 10 kilometers of streams surrounding the town as of Wednesday.
They are not the only animals affected. A resident of North Lima, about 15 kilometers east of where the accident occurred, says five of her chickens and a rooster were suddenly found dead on Tuesday, just a day after a controlled burning of some of her derailed wagons as a precautionary measure. The black cloud that was generated left scenes of terror to remember and the feeling that the collateral damage could be long-lasting.
Several neighbors have complained of nausea and headaches, but officials in both Ohio and Pennsylvania say it's safe to return home. "Don't tell me it's safe. Something's going on if the fish are floating dead in the creek," Cathey Reese, a neighbor from Negley, Ohio, told a local network.
Inhalation of vinyl chloride, a material frequently used during World War I, can cause respiratory symptoms along with neurological symptoms such as headaches and dizziness. Chronic exposure to high levels of vinyl chloride has been associated with liver damage and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a partial manifesto from the Norfolk Southern company detailing other hazardous chemicals on the train, including ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate and isobutylene. All can cause irritation or neurological symptoms such as dizziness and headaches.
The accident occurred on Friday night, February 3, in a sparsely inhabited area of the region, so there were no deaths or injuries. However, the spilled substances led to an evacuation order on Saturday and authorities having to go house to house on Sunday to remove those who refused to leave. On Monday, after confirming that the valves to release the pressure of some wagons were no longer working, the controlled burning was carried out, which ended in an explosion and a black cloud of film.
Norfolk Southern said the operation was a success and the EPA sent a subsequent statement assuring that the air was clean, free of chemical contaminants. But the residents of East Palestine and the surrounding towns do not trust it. "They only evacuated less than a mile from that place, and that's crazy to me," Giannos tells NBC. "I'm worried about the long-term impact on my health. This is all a disaster."
For days the authorities recommended drinking bottled water and at the moment few trust the one that comes out of the tap, in a scenario reminiscent of what happened in Hinkley, California, in the 90s and the multimillion-dollar lawsuit that inspired the Steven Soderbergh film , Erin Brokovich, starring Julia Roberts. In this case, the class action lawsuit is already underway, brought by two law firms.
Dan Trust, one of the lawyers behind the lawsuit, assures that the effects of the controlled explosions are reaching residents far beyond the radius of three kilometers that they initially calculated. Several neighbors have respiratory problems due to the negligence of Norfolk Southern.
The transportation corporation said in a statement that "surveillance video from a residence showed what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of failure from overheating moments before the derailment. The set of wheels from the suspected wagon has been collected as evidence for a metallurgical examination".
Trust, however, believes that trains do not derail without reason and attributes this to the company's negligence. "We have reason to believe that the train and carriages were not properly maintained, and we hope to continue to discover more during the course of this lawsuit." Concerns have also been raised by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro over Norfolk's way of operating the train, which he called "poor". Shapiro indicated that he has been in communication with President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and that they have offered their full cooperation "to the people of Pennsylvania."
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
