The Poison Train： Tragedy in East Palestine ｜ Guest： Pedro Gonzalez ｜ 3⧸7⧸23
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per Minute
186.89142
Summary
Pedro Gonzalez, the Politics Editor at Chronicles, joins me to talk about the train derailment that happened in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 1st, 2019, and the people on the ground in the town of 5,000.
Transcript
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00:01:29.080
Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest, which I think you're going to enjoy. Now, I'm sure all of you have at this point heard about the tragedy in East Palestine. And we know that there is a lot of speculation. There are a lot of people saying things like this is our Chernobyl. And I wanted to get somebody who had been on the ground who looked deep into this issue so we could kind of get more into what's going on there.
00:01:56.100
And Pedro Gonzalez is joining me. He is the politics editor over at Chronicles. And he's also got a great sub stack of his own Contra. Make sure that you check it out. Pedro, thanks for coming on.
00:02:11.460
Absolutely. So like I said, this train derailment happened and there wasn't much coming out from the media beyond the initial contact. We know that because of some of the reporting that came out from different people like Tucker Carlson, more attention was paid.
00:02:29.320
But I still feel like it's insanely small story compared to its actual impact. So you went deep in depth on your own sub stack about this. And I want you to go ahead and just kind of walk us through different parts of it. But let's just start at the beginning. What actually happened with the train derailment?
00:02:48.440
Why did it derail? Were there different factors involved? A lack of regulation? Mechanical failures? Why did this train come apart? What was it carrying?
00:02:57.280
Yeah. So there's a lot here. And that's part of the reason why I wrote it. Because most of the information that was out there was coming out in bits and pieces.
00:03:05.820
And it was just difficult to get a kind of bird's eye view of what had happened. And one thing that I found when it's getting into this is that you really have to kind of piece it all together because on the one hand, there's no newspaper or media ecosystem in East Palestine, Ohio.
00:03:25.900
All of the reporting has happened from local outlets that are outside of East Palestine, people that live, you know, the town over or whatever and work for the media there that are coming into East Palestine.
00:03:38.280
And so it's interesting in the sense that although this has happened in the backyards of these people in a town of about 5,000 just under that, they're often in the dark and they have to turn to other sources outside of where they live to basically find out what's going on.
00:03:56.640
And it's a really interesting aspect of the story. I mean, interesting from an outside perspective, but obviously it's terrifying with the locals that something big has happened in their backyard and they often feel like they have no idea what's going on because people don't talk to them.
00:04:10.680
They don't get the answers they want. They get conflicting answers. And that's part of why, partly why I set out to do this.
00:04:17.120
So the East Palestine derailment actually begins before the night the train went off the tracks.
00:04:24.700
It starts on, as far as I can tell, February 1st when Norfolk Southern train 32N broke down at least once in the night.
00:04:33.860
People who spoke to CBS News agreed to talk to the media on the condition of anonymity because they said they were afraid of retaliation from Norfolk Southern.
00:04:42.540
And they told the press that they think that the reason the train broke down had to do with the fact that it was massive.
00:04:50.440
It was hauling over 150 cars, I think it was 151 cars, and it weighed 18,000 tons, something like that.
00:04:57.280
Just this thing was a behemoth. And the people who were, again, talking to the press anonymously were saying that, you know, we shouldn't even be running cars this big.
00:05:06.020
Like, this is asking for a disaster when you have this kind of a behemoth on the tracks.
00:05:12.860
And they also noted that basically the whole operation from beginning to end is stretched to the bone because of all of these layoffs, that you have one guy who's doing multiple different jobs.
00:05:25.100
I mean, this is – I think you should probably look at this as intense as, like, flying an airplane.
00:05:29.460
For whatever reason, we don't. But it seems to me that, you know, trains hauling important cargo and especially hazardous chemicals should be taken as seriously as planes flying in the sky.
00:05:40.180
But for whatever reason, we don't. And I think that's represented in the fact that Norfolk Southern thinks it's apparently fine to have, you know, one guy doing two or three different jobs that, you know, he may or may not actually be able to do.
00:05:51.700
But that's just what they have to do because there's not enough people.
00:05:57.560
On February 3rd, the train is seen as it passes through Salem, Ohio at different locations.
00:06:07.580
It's basically security camera footage that we have at different residences and businesses that show as the train is sailing through the town that there's what looks like fire or sparks flashing underneath the cars.
00:06:23.680
I think the footage that went viral that I think most people – if you've seen this video that I'm talking about, you've probably – you've seen the one from – it's a manufacturing plant in Salem.
00:06:34.860
And it's – the train is passing through the back of it, and you can see this kind of glow from underneath it.
00:06:39.540
That's about 20 miles from where the train derailed.
00:06:42.780
And so a big question is, you know, was the crew notified of the derailment?
00:06:48.000
Or in other words, why didn't they stop it from happening?
00:06:52.700
And initially, and as far as we know still, it sounds like it was a mechanical failure, not a brake failure or anything like that, just a mechanical failure.
00:07:01.500
And that the mechanisms that were in place to warn the crew, it seems like they basically failed or didn't warn the crew until the last minute.
00:07:11.380
And this is, again, a lot of this stuff is still being investigated, which I think is actually good that I wrote my report when I did about two or three weeks after the fact.
00:07:21.240
Because there are details in the report – again, this happened on February 3rd – but there are details in what I wrote that didn't come to light until, like, February 25th, just because that's how this whole thing has played out.
00:07:35.360
And initially, people, I think, kind of settled on that.
00:07:42.060
You know, it's like, okay, well, the crew didn't get notified.
00:07:44.500
There was some kind of a system failure, right?
00:07:51.260
But then, again, after the fact, it comes out that on February 1st, the train broke down at least once.
00:07:58.860
So why was it rolling on the tracks after February 1st, right?
00:08:03.760
Even if you – like, setting aside what happened on February 3rd and the failure of the warning mechanisms to actually give the crew time to stop the train,
00:08:10.480
why was the train even rolling if it broke down on the night of February 1st?
00:08:14.260
Like, no one has answered that question or has bothered to ask it.
00:08:20.140
So is the practice of running a train this large with that kind of skeleton crew, is that very normal for what's going on now?
00:08:26.840
Not even just with Norfolk Southern, but do you know, is that reflective of a larger trend in kind of the railroad industry?
00:08:35.900
I didn't compare – I didn't do, like, a comparative analysis of basically the size of trains today versus, I don't know, 10 years ago.
00:08:42.580
But the comments that the crew gave to CBS indicated that this has become too common,
00:08:49.860
especially considering the lack of people that are available to make sure the train is safely operating.
00:08:56.280
So – and you kind of see this recurring theme of people saying – it goes all the way up to Pete Buttigieg, right,
00:09:03.280
whose initial reaction was, like, this stuff happens all the time, which that might be true, but it shouldn't happen all the time.
00:09:10.380
It's like saying, well, you know, there are a lot of third-world countries out there.
00:09:14.060
It's like, well, that doesn't mean that we should be one and that our infrastructure should reflect that of a third-world country, right?
00:09:21.600
No, I was going to say, yeah, that's something that you really think about with this.
00:09:26.000
Isn't this just a reflection of a larger problem we have where we're just stretching all of our infrastructure,
00:09:31.800
all of these critical systems that are just the lifeblood of America that no one really seems to care about, pay attention to?
00:09:38.440
Everyone's way more interested in social justice and how many drag queens can dance on the head of a pin
00:09:44.300
rather than, you know, whether or not we can safely transport dangerous chemicals across the United States
00:09:50.040
without just nuking a small town in the middle of Ohio.
00:09:54.340
And so, you know, you mentioned airplanes, but we know even in that case, you know,
00:09:58.560
equity and those things are far more important than actually getting these systems moving.
00:10:03.160
And I think that just speaks to how far everyone is stretched and how willing they are to kind of bend and shape things around these political priorities.
00:10:10.020
And I think that that was another reason that I wrote this is because I immediately became sick of the whole, you know,
00:10:22.760
This story is so much bigger and deeper than that.
00:10:24.900
And the issues that have made this, like Pete Buttigieg, unfortunately was correct to say,
00:10:32.160
a kind of a common factor of American life when it comes to our infrastructure.
00:10:36.780
Those, the things that have made that a reality, they predate the Biden administration.
00:10:42.540
They run through the Trump administration and actually go back to the Obama administration.
00:10:47.080
And it's the same thing regardless of who is in the White House.
00:10:50.680
Our infrastructure is still crumbling regardless of the rhetoric, right?
00:10:55.380
And again, I tried to make that very clear in my piece that this goes beyond Republican and Democrat.
00:11:00.440
And so the train derails on the night of February 3rd.
00:11:08.320
And again, this is one of those things where it's really murky because what we were told and what we're still told is that the reason that there was this controlled vent,
00:11:19.920
and we're going to get to that, is that there was the threat of these cars containing hazardous chemicals exploding,
00:11:28.140
which would have, you know, the blast radius they estimated would be about a mile.
00:11:33.040
And on top of that, you'd obviously get the release of all these noxious chemicals, but with a blast.
00:11:37.240
And so what we understand is that there was nothing noxious from what we're told that was leaked as soon as the train derailed, right?
00:11:48.860
It was a sort of thing like that stuff did get into the soil and sky, but it was because of the controlled vent.
00:11:56.020
But again, here's one of the murky things is that people immediately reported smelling something foul.
00:12:00.660
The fire chief, Keith Drabik of East Palestine, at one point basically said, like, look, as far as we can tell, the air quality is okay.
00:12:10.500
But if you don't have to come to East Palestine, don't.
00:12:13.020
And the mayor himself, who was on scene within minutes of the train derailing around 9 p.m., said that he could smell something really terrible.
00:12:23.640
And like all the residents I spoke with said the same thing.
00:12:25.880
And one of the residents I spoke with, her name is Zusa, she told me that she actually woke up and then she was awake.
00:12:33.660
She was awake when the train derailed and she had no idea what happened.
00:12:36.820
She just heard tons of sirens, you know, tons of ruckus.
00:12:41.800
And then she knew something was wrong when her son, who has asthma, started vomiting.
00:12:46.200
And that suddenly, like, she had difficulty breathing because her lungs and her home were filled with some horrendous smelling thing.
00:12:55.880
But they had no idea, you know, what had happened, really.
00:12:59.500
So, again, this is one of those things where there's all these questions.
00:13:02.500
Was there or was there not something that was leaked from these cars on the night that it actually happened, apart from the controlled vent?
00:13:11.200
And that contributes to the distrust around this and all the confusion.
00:13:14.720
And that was my first impression of, like, talking with the residents, apart from the fact that they're very nice and kind and generous with their time, despite the fact that they're kind of living through this, you know, waking nightmare of uncertainty.
00:13:26.580
They're also just very, they don't trust authorities.
00:13:29.740
Because from the beginning, the authorities fumbled how they were handling this.
00:13:34.340
And that's reflected in everything, in every aspect of the response.
00:13:42.960
No, well, I just, I think it's interesting that, like you said, because there is no media in that area, they are completely reliant on outside reporting and they're completely reliant on the experts.
00:13:56.520
Like you said, you're completely reliant on these different authorities that have to come in from out of town.
00:14:05.600
And unfortunately, of course, you want the first concern to be the welfare of the citizens, the stabilization of the environment, containing everything, making sure that people are properly informed and taken care of.
00:14:18.700
But it seems like at every step, the concern was the possible political outfall, the possible, you know, legal liabilities, the possible reactions by different corporations, entities there.
00:14:31.860
It's hard for the people there to get a straight answer.
00:14:41.580
What is being done to ensure that the damage is minimized?
00:14:46.340
And what action do I need to take as a resident here?
00:14:48.720
It just seems like that was completely, like you said, something that they could not trust at any moment.
00:14:54.400
No, from the beginning, that's at least the impression the residents got.
00:14:58.780
And again, it's totally independent of intention.
00:15:01.960
Um, but that's, that's just the impression that the residents got is that people don't care about us.
00:15:07.280
And also it's more important that, you know, Norfolk Southern comes out of this looking okay.
00:15:11.520
And so on February 4th, there's a partial evacuation order that's imposed by Mayor Conaway.
00:15:20.960
And most people, by the way, in the town that I spill, I actually didn't meet anybody who doesn't like the mayor.
00:15:28.040
And I should have started with, with this is that East Palestine is the quintessential, um, small American town.
00:15:38.120
You know, the average income, the average household income is around 46,000.
00:15:41.960
It's 90% white, you know, 99% of the people that live there are U.S. citizens.
00:15:45.920
Um, it's, it's, it's a small place, but it's very industrious.
00:15:49.760
Like they've, they've been manufacturing a lot of things that range from things that are made with metal to, uh, uh, uh, ceramics.
00:15:57.440
I spoke with people that have worked at the same ceramics, uh, facility for decades.
00:16:03.240
Uh, and that facility, it's actually really interesting.
00:16:06.040
I found that the, the place where they work, this, uh, this plant that they said was actually fairly close to where the train derailed.
00:16:12.160
Um, the kilns are over a hundred years old and the, uh, this tiny little plant in East Palestine, Ohio, manufactured, um, parts made out of ceramic for, um, uh, the Manhattan project.
00:16:27.380
They, they covertly was involved in producing stuff that was being, uh, shipped off for use in the Manhattan project.
00:16:34.260
So kind of interesting, like, and I, I wanted to bring that out because the reaction that some people had, I'm not going to name names.
00:16:41.020
I could, if you want me to, but the reaction that some people had was like, who cares about this, like small town?
00:16:46.380
This is like, this is so irrelevant compared to, I don't know, Ukraine or something.
00:16:58.340
I think that was the, the, the reaction so many people had is, you know, this seems like a horrific event.
00:17:03.980
That seems like there's a huge problem here, but you know, no one from the government responding,
00:17:09.640
no major players are showing up, you know, the president is heading over to Ukraine to
00:17:14.740
talk about how many billions of dollars you're going to spend on that.
00:17:17.320
And like you said, there's a failure on all political sides here.
00:17:20.020
It's not just the, just Biden or the Democrats, but, but it did seem like a very clear message
00:17:30.060
There's, there's more important things happen in the world.
00:17:34.860
But one thing that is, is a little confusing is from much of the coverage, a lot of people,
00:17:40.560
I think got the idea that there was just this order to like go burn everything, you
00:17:44.400
know, like, like some guy showed up with a flamethrower and just kind of, uh, got rid
00:17:48.660
of the chemicals, but it, it sounds like the train might've art was already on fire.
00:17:54.540
There was already some level already happening.
00:17:57.280
And so the decision was whether or not to go ahead and like you said, vent those chemicals.
00:18:02.520
So what was the train carrying that is, that was so, uh, worrisome and why was the decision
00:18:09.040
made to go ahead and take that action while the train was already on fire?
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00:18:43.600
So the train was carrying a variety of different chemicals that are hazardous to humans and are
00:18:49.000
used in various things from paint to manufacturing PVC.
00:18:54.560
And, but the one that everyone knows about and the one that everyone, that was like the main
00:19:06.260
Five of the cars that derailed contained a combined, uh, it was over a hundred thousand gallons of
00:19:18.580
Um, and it, it, it actually can be converted into, or it, it, it can become, um, essentially
00:19:30.720
And this was, this was used in world war two or excuse me, world war one.
00:19:38.680
And so I think, I think it becomes that when it interacts with heat.
00:19:42.520
And so basically the concern was, is like, if we allow this, because initially the, um,
00:19:48.460
initially the approach was to allow the fires to burn out and then, um, first responders
00:19:55.480
would move in and then basically, uh, complete extinguishing it once Norfolk Southern deemed
00:20:01.820
it safe, but that changed when on November 5th, there was detected a, basically a sharp
00:20:09.580
increase in the temperature of one of the cars containing vinyl chloride.
00:20:13.120
And the concern was that if that car goes, the, all the other ones are going to go.
00:20:17.300
And, and then you have a scenario where you're not just, you don't just have an explosion,
00:20:21.600
but then you, you have this scenario where this stuff, I guess, gets hot enough that it
00:20:28.080
Again, all this stuff is, this is one of the situations where it's like,
00:20:31.820
I, the criticism of whether or not, you know, like the vent was a good or bad idea.
00:20:38.680
Like, I guess we're not going to know for a while, but it wasn't an easy, it wasn't an
00:20:44.060
And I mean, imagine being one of the first responders that had to deal with this because
00:20:47.660
what these guys had to do was, is they had to dig trenches around.
00:20:51.420
And I think this is a really important part of the story that again, this got totally overlooked
00:20:55.280
in the really heated debate over whether or not they should have vented the chemicals,
00:21:03.500
What they did, what they ended up doing was digging these trenches around the cars and
00:21:07.480
dumping the stuff into pits and then igniting it with flares and allowing it to burn off.
00:21:13.280
And, and that's where you got that, that photogenic, but ominous black cloud that everyone
00:21:18.180
But it's important to note that the cars were on fire before that.
00:21:21.600
I was not allowed to share it and put it in my, in my story because of the person that
00:21:26.700
took it, I think was like worried about their employment.
00:21:28.960
But I saw a video that was taken by somebody who was on scene at the moment it happened.
00:21:33.000
And I mean, the cars were on fire because again, there was, there was already that black
00:21:41.300
And there was smoke before that, that, that really nasty black cloud is just obviously all
00:21:50.240
And amid the debate over the venting, it was completely missed this question of like, well,
00:21:57.160
Because a lot of the people who were involved in particular, the firefighters had to surrender
00:22:02.060
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment because it was contaminated.
00:22:07.320
I was told that they had boots that had basically been eaten through by the stuff that they were
00:22:12.420
Uh, I tried to, I tried to speak to the East Palestinian fire department that they didn't
00:22:16.420
want to talk to me, but I know that the fire chief himself has said that, that they're basically
00:22:21.100
having to use gear on loan from other agencies in and out of Ohio because they had to surrender
00:22:27.060
Like this sounds like some pretty nasty stuff, right?
00:22:29.600
So what about the guys that had to actually dig the trenches, interact with it?
00:22:32.620
Well, according to one union representative, and this letter was sent to Governor DeWine on
00:22:42.660
We like, we didn't get this letter until March 1st.
00:22:45.320
And in that letter, this union rep says that there are a bunch of, of, uh, a bunch of workers
00:22:50.580
who were involved in this effort, uh, who were not given the proper protective equipment.
00:22:56.800
And that, that at least one of them told the rep that he, he had been experiencing like
00:23:03.840
brutal migraines and nausea as he was work, like dealing with this stuff.
00:23:07.700
And he, and he basically called the supervisor and asked, like, I, I, you know, I can't see
00:23:14.080
And the supervisor got, got back to him by saying, I'll get back to you.
00:23:19.200
And according to this letter, there are 40 people who were, uh, that this person represents
00:23:25.200
who were involved in the cleanup, who say that they weren't given the proper PPE and that
00:23:28.960
for days afterwards, they had migraines and nausea.
00:23:35.100
And most people don't even know that the letter was sent, you know, and I think Norfolk Southern
00:23:40.960
They, yeah, they responded in the Hill by basically saying it's not true or whatever.
00:23:44.960
All their responses are worded in such a way that don't inspire confidence and make you
00:23:48.900
think that they're, it's like, it's kind of an admission that there's probably some
00:23:53.040
truth to this complaint because of the way that things are worded.
00:23:55.540
But anyways, again, we didn't even know that until March 1st because everyone was like
00:23:59.640
so angry about the venting, but that everyone was so angry about the venting that we forgot
00:24:03.340
about the people that actually had to deal with this stuff and are ultimately forgotten.
00:24:07.000
And we won't hear about them again, you know, unless something horrible happens to them,
00:24:12.500
It sounds like a, like an agent orange, you know, burn pit scenario where, you know,
00:24:18.320
How could they even be prepared for this kind of thing?
00:24:21.080
Like it seems like that your average local first responding department is not going to have
00:24:26.640
It's very clear that the company involved did not have any way to contribute to this
00:24:30.900
cleanup, you know, in, in the immediate aftermath when these decisions had to be made.
00:24:35.600
And then the fact that these people are not getting any kind of answers, that there's no
00:24:40.260
attention paid to what's going to happen longterm.
00:24:43.360
It does seem like an absolute nightmare for, for the people who had to immediately be impacted
00:24:49.700
And if they're not there, then that just means the community suffers even more.
00:24:53.460
So they're doing their job, but you know, they're not getting any, any special thanks
00:24:57.720
and who knows if they'll be taken care of in the long run for being directly involved
00:25:04.020
But what about the, you know, the aftermath of this?
00:25:07.700
Like once you have that situation, at least somewhat stabilized, what, what were the people
00:25:14.800
And what was the effort of the government and Norfolk Southern in trying to understand kind
00:25:19.640
of the impact of, uh, uh, on the environment and the people who are living in the town?
00:25:25.080
So initially it seemed like the wine was because it's interesting to see how attitudes toward
00:25:33.300
Uh, when I went to, I got as close as I could to where the train derailed and there's, um,
00:25:42.720
You can tell because it looks really warm by weather, but there's an old banner that
00:25:46.480
says, um, I think it's like dump Mike fire, Mike DeWine.
00:25:50.160
So you, you can kind of see that this is a town that, you know, is, is already there.
00:25:58.380
We spoke to the, at the ceramics facility told me that, or at least the husband told me
00:26:02.660
that he was basically a Democrat his whole life, uh, until Trump.
00:26:06.640
And, um, so this is very much that kind of a town, right?
00:26:12.040
Uh, like they value, I guess their, their independence and, and at the same time they
00:26:20.740
And so initially it, I think it actually looked like DeWine was doing a decent job.
00:26:26.120
Uh, there, there was, what seemed like an aggressive, uh, response from the state, but
00:26:31.120
then it was like, after that, it kind of just disappeared.
00:26:34.200
And that's how most people feel like DeWine just, you know, did what he had to do initially
00:26:40.280
And, and you contrast that to COVID where someone I know joked is the reason that DeWine
00:26:47.340
locked everyone in their homes during COVID is because, you know, his true calling in
00:26:50.760
life was to be a cop and very different with this, you know, very much like hands off.
00:26:56.920
There's that, uh, very bad, uh, question that he feels where he's asked, you know, would
00:27:03.600
And his response is something like, well, I think I'd probably be drinking bottled water,
00:27:06.640
but yeah, I think I'd be back in town if I lived here.
00:27:12.200
And so, but the thing that really rubbed people the wrong way was the fact that from where
00:27:19.360
they stood, it looked like Norfolk Southern was overseeing the cleanup or, you know, most
00:27:26.060
people kind of see it as a coverup of, of what Norfolk Southern did.
00:27:29.140
And again, it didn't inspire confidence that the testing agencies, the, the contractors
00:27:36.160
that Norfolk Southern brought in, like the center for, uh, toxicology and environmental
00:27:41.080
health that I write about them, my story, uh, that they brought in like the CTEH is, is
00:27:47.620
a firm that has a long history of being involved in controversies where, you know, some organization
00:27:55.680
like BP, like they were involved in the BP oils bill and they've been involved in a
00:28:00.580
number of other environmental disasters where a corporation is at fault and this contractor
00:28:12.160
And so when they, you know, came into town and introduced themselves, like locals figured
00:28:19.980
And so I spoke to one woman who had a pretty bad experience with her or with, uh, with this
00:28:27.360
And basically she had been living, she's, she's the woman that I mentioned earlier who
00:28:33.620
with her son when he began vomiting and she had been living, um, out of town across the
00:28:41.240
And on February, until February 15th, she had been receiving housing assistance.
00:28:45.120
But once all these tests came back and again, who's doing the testing, right?
00:28:48.440
Once all the testing came back that everything's fine, the housing assistance started to dry
00:28:54.400
And again, contributing to that controversy is the fact that when DeWine declared the coast
00:28:59.940
was clear, uh, he, he wasn't citing, uh, authorities on a local or state level.
00:29:06.180
He was actually citing a contractor called ACOM.
00:29:13.000
Uh, it was, I believe it was hired by Norfolk Southern as well.
00:29:15.700
And, but more importantly, when I looked into donations, um, through the, uh, open secrets
00:29:21.320
database, they called, I think it's called followthemoney.org.
00:29:23.740
It has, it has a broader institutional name, but the URL is followthemoney.org.
00:29:27.040
You can, you can actually see that ACOM has contributed at least, uh, once to DeWine in
00:29:34.500
So again, this is the kind of stuff that makes people itch.
00:29:37.820
And there's actually a lot more here when it comes to like the, the, the connection
00:29:42.560
between politics and lobbying and the transportation industry into wine specifically, but, um, going
00:29:50.020
So she wants to get her home tested to confirm, you know, it basically, if I'm not going to
00:29:55.280
be supported to live outside of East Palestine, I want to know for sure that it's safe to go
00:29:59.760
And so initially a test is scheduled and she goes to meet them at her home and he's
00:30:04.560
Palestinian, uh, but 15 minutes before the appointed time, she's told we basically, we
00:30:09.460
can't do the test because we need a cop and there are no cops that are available at the
00:30:15.020
And so basically they surmised that there were no cops available because they're all
00:30:21.760
And Zusa told me that she ended up getting into a really heated exchange with this toxicologist
00:30:27.780
from the center because the toxicologist is telling her, we can't trace any of the symptoms
00:30:37.060
And that sets Zusa off because, you know, it defies everything that she's been hearing
00:30:48.360
And I reached out to her and I just gave her the quote that Zusa gave me.
00:30:51.180
And she replied and said that, uh, she just, she basically clarified that none of the air
00:30:58.400
quality tests or none of the symptoms that people are reporting, uh, have been connected
00:31:09.260
But again, there's, you know, tons of people reporting different things.
00:31:12.820
Like obviously Zusa's son was throwing up and she had difficulty breathing.
00:31:15.500
And I spoke to a business owner who evacuated, um, her shop in the downtown.
00:31:20.480
And when she came back to her shop, she said it was filled with this really thick chemical
00:31:26.660
And then her son could still, I mean, like, this is like a week and a half after the fact.
00:31:29.780
And she said her son occasionally can still smell it.
00:31:32.960
And so then you have this, this contractor that Norfolk Southern brought in saying, we
00:31:37.960
can't connect any of the things that you're describing to air quality.
00:31:40.440
And again, like, this is exactly the kind of thing that, that has made this, this whole
00:31:47.720
crisis, the actual environmental crisis and a health emergency, um, seem like one big cover
00:31:57.300
I mean, it, it feels like having a cigarette company tell you that the scientists that they
00:32:02.200
hire have found that cigarettes have no connection to cancer.
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So we've got these poor people who are in a town that, you know, there's a massive black
00:34:01.600
cloud from a chemical that is carcinogenic that we know has serious side effects.
00:34:07.760
They are all there's many, many people in town feeling very serious health, health impacts,
00:34:15.780
and they have this contractor hired by the very people who are responsible for the train
00:34:21.940
derailment saying, well, we just can't possibly figure out how any of this could be connected,
00:34:27.600
even though a three year old pointing at the giant cloud, the sky can probably do the math.
00:34:37.320
I mean, we all we hear about is environmental regulations, the horrible impacts of things
00:34:42.980
Is the government not active in testing this stuff, making sure that the corporation is
00:34:47.740
doing and needs to keeping an eye on these contractors who have been involved in this testing?
00:34:53.440
Initially, the impression was that basically Norfolk Southern was out in front and that the EPA
00:34:59.940
But ultimately, again, the impression that everyone got was that Norfolk Southern was
00:35:07.440
I mean, this is again, this is why it's so stupid.
00:35:09.840
After Trump visited, then the federal government starts to get more involved, obviously, because
00:35:14.460
the Biden administration, I think, felt humiliated by that.
00:35:17.720
And so that's when you start to see kind of a more proactive role.
00:35:21.420
DeWine also starts to be a little more proactive.
00:35:23.900
But I think from the very beginning, that was part of the problem was that it felt like
00:35:32.500
you had to get people to care because this is not the kind of town that you're supposed
00:35:37.920
And again, even when you have this involvement by the government, people are looking at,
00:35:45.180
for example, guys like Troy Nels, the Texas Republican who chastised J.D. Vance.
00:35:52.080
I don't know if you if you saw that video of J.D. Vance in a creek.
00:35:59.520
And and Vance is in there and he has a stick and he scrapes it across the creek bed.
00:36:04.780
And there's this kind of like brew of chemicals that come up and it looks kind of like an oil slick.
00:36:13.420
And Nels freaks out and says that it's really irresponsible because sorry, J.D.
00:36:18.080
after that release in that video says that people should people should stick to bottled
00:36:24.060
And this stuff is being provided by the government.
00:36:26.360
So it's like an easy it's an easy thing that you can do to keep yourself safe.
00:36:29.580
Just drink bottled water instead of tap water for as long as you can.
00:36:33.760
And Troy Nels freaks out and says that it's super responsible for him to say that, you know,
00:36:39.680
kind of like shame on you for for scaring people.
00:36:42.620
I think he even says that he like, you know, ask someone to give me a glass of tap water
00:36:47.280
so I can so I can drink it in front of them and show them how safe it is.
00:36:51.520
But I looked at Troy Nels just because it's so easy to find this stuff.
00:36:55.980
And when you look at like donations that are given to Troy Nels, the big the biggest one
00:37:00.940
of the biggest sectors for donors for Nels is the transportation industry.
00:37:05.300
And he also received donations from Norfolk Southern during the 2022 general election.
00:37:13.480
And again, so it's like the government's involved.
00:37:16.200
But people still don't really feel like it like it's looking out for them.
00:37:20.940
And the last time I visited before I published a story, the EPA had actually finally set up
00:37:31.000
And I think it's part of that, like they actually are trying to get more aggressive about showing
00:37:40.520
And I mean, look, the the people that I spoke with, they were I mean, they're actually nice.
00:37:46.040
And this is, I think, another important part of the story.
00:37:48.700
The people in downtown East Palestine who are there working for the EPA, some of them are
00:37:55.340
But I imagine, you know, a few of them are also from Ohio and they're basically just normal
00:38:02.320
And I got that impression also from a few Norfolk Southern employees that I spoke with.
00:38:07.620
Like, these are not like, you know, the suits like these are blue collar guys who live in
00:38:13.260
And, you know, they don't like being you know, they don't like the position that they put
00:38:18.220
in where they've kind of become representatives of this like evil entity.
00:38:21.100
Like, you look at Norfolk Southern's top shareholders and it's like Vanguard and BlackRock, right?
00:38:25.780
It's the perfect villain because they're just like they're lobbying everywhere.
00:38:30.680
They're really good at influencing Republicans and Democrats to get what they want in terms
00:38:35.600
You know, they're they have obviously their shareholders include these like what Matt
00:38:40.440
Taibbi would call like the vampire squids of finance capitalism, right?
00:38:46.700
Um, but then there are people that are just like, like the first responders, the emergency
00:38:50.980
crews that work for Norfolk Southern, um, who obviously, you know, are not happy about
00:38:56.240
this, but because of what's happened, it's like blown back onto them.
00:39:00.140
And so like I was told by one of the guys that I interviewed, his name is Chris Klein.
00:39:05.300
He told me that he, he has friends who are both there on the night the train derailed.
00:39:09.800
And he also has friends who are, you know, blue collar Norfolk Southern employees and he
00:39:17.200
But he said like the, the Norfolk Southern guys have been kind of getting like unduly attacked
00:39:22.800
by people they know, kind of like, how could you work for that company?
00:39:27.040
And that was another aspect of the story that I thought was really important to tell because,
00:39:32.000
um, because these are things that no one in Ohio are responsible for that these blue collar
00:39:44.140
Um, and, and again, it's, it's something that transcends like the, like the, the red blue
00:39:48.540
divide, uh, because it doesn't matter who's in the white house.
00:39:51.400
They're going to be lobbied by organizations like Norfolk Southern anyway.
00:39:54.880
Now, do you think that the, or do the residents feel like there would have been more of a response
00:40:02.840
if there was more political hay to be made here?
00:40:05.400
Like you said, so many people involved here are lobbied by these people.
00:40:09.200
They don't want, uh, the right type of attention drawn to what's happening here.
00:40:14.880
But if this had been a community that, you know, if this could have been a, the story about
00:40:19.340
how, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, racist company that was, uh, callous against, uh, different
00:40:25.660
community, uh, you know, just, just let this, uh, chemical run wild and, and let the effects
00:40:32.120
Do people there feel like there would have been a more significant federal response and that
00:40:36.560
the press would have brought a lot more resources to bear on holding a company like this
00:40:43.080
I mean, something that occurred to me was the fact that, you know, like Flint, Michigan, we
00:40:46.960
all know what those two words mean when I say them, like the, the issue of water in there,
00:40:52.760
It seems to me that East Palestine, uh, it only got attention.
00:40:58.960
It, it has not kind of entered our psyche and our vocabulary the way that Flint, Michigan
00:41:06.640
And I think for obvious reasons, again, this is a town that you're not supposed to care
00:41:10.440
You know, this is, this is a quintessential white working class town in heartland America.
00:41:18.380
And, and so I think that unfortunately that's just kind of how things are.
00:41:21.720
I mean, Pete Buttigieg was talking as, as this whole thing was unfolding, Pete Buttigieg
00:41:26.280
is talking about how, uh, it's a real problem that there are so many white people in construction.
00:41:33.040
You know, it's just, it's, it's terrible, um, that you basically have to, you have to worry
00:41:41.740
about whether or not your town is going to get the attention it needs amid a crisis, you
00:41:46.600
know, based on if you, if you check enough of the boxes that suggest you are politically
00:41:53.620
Um, yeah, if, if we don't have enough people with the right diversity boxes to throw in
00:41:59.860
front of a camera, then our town might just not get the kind of federal aid or the kind
00:42:04.860
of media attention really that drives, uh, accountability and changes things.
00:42:14.240
I mean, like you said, there, there's a lot of this has dried up, uh, the federal dollars
00:42:19.220
or the housing assistance and, and other things are not necessarily there.
00:42:23.440
I mean, we've got FEMA, we've got these emergency organizations that could provide extended, uh,
00:42:33.540
I know that for, you know, six, eight, almost a month, almost a year after hurricanes, FEMA's
00:42:39.840
out there putting people up in hotels and taking care of people, making sure that they
00:42:45.040
kind of have a lot of this relief are, are, is none of this involved here?
00:42:49.840
Is it, is that attention not being focused and why not?
00:42:53.620
So my, my focus, um, toward the end of the story is talking about the assistance that business
00:43:01.400
Because it seems like there's all, there's, this is another murky aspect of the story.
00:43:08.560
And this is something that lent to the concern of, of locals is for example, initially there
00:43:14.300
were these, the people that were going around conducting testing were asking people to sign,
00:43:19.120
uh, hold harmless paperwork, basically sign this.
00:43:25.020
And, uh, if anything happens to you, we're not liable.
00:43:28.960
Uh, basically if we tell you to move, if we tell you it's safe to go back home and you
00:43:33.180
get cancer or whatever, uh, you can't hold this responsible.
00:43:37.120
And it's funny because again, Norfolk Southern's response to that once pictures of these documents
00:43:42.040
started to go viral, uh, and people were saying like, I'm being asked to hold harmless the
00:43:49.220
If anything happens to me, like that doesn't, that doesn't make me feel good.
00:43:52.360
Norfolk Southern responded by saying, well, that was a mistake.
00:43:54.800
Uh, we, we've, we've corrected that and, uh, yeah, like they didn't even say it's not
00:43:59.920
They're like, Oh, whoops, we, uh, that one slipped by us and we're going to make sure
00:44:06.020
It was just this, it's how all their statements are like, they don't, they don't rebut anything.
00:44:12.500
Or, you know, uh, like they, they, they were asked, or there's all this controversy over
00:44:20.120
Because, uh, several locals told me that whenever a train comes through, there's this awful chemical
00:44:25.740
smell, uh, depending on how close to you live to, to ground zero.
00:44:29.460
And that might have to do with the fact that a lot of the soil, um, this is, this goes back
00:44:37.860
So after the controlled vents on the night of, uh, February 8th, um, the mandatory of
00:44:44.840
actual evacuation was lifted and trains started rolling immediately afterwards.
00:44:51.080
And that actually infuriated the mayor because the mayor was, according to the mayor, Norfolk
00:44:55.680
Southern told him the trains won't start rolling until basically everyone's back in their homes
00:45:04.020
As soon as the evacuation order was lifted at night, trains started rolling through.
00:45:08.980
I've heard estimates that range from five minutes to 15 minutes to an hour, but most
00:45:13.340
people have like the consensus is the coast was declared clear and the trains started going
00:45:19.280
before residents were able to get back into their homes or open their own or open their
00:45:24.840
And when I visited right before I published my story, I saw signs on shops that say close
00:45:31.960
And I asked people, you know, who wanted to be anonymous.
00:45:36.060
I asked them, um, is it related to, you know, what happened on February 3rd?
00:45:42.200
So the trains are rolling, but life has not gone back to normal.
00:45:46.660
And I mean, that's just kind of the story of this whole thing.
00:45:50.100
The good news is that it looks like the EPA is, is going to be there.
00:45:55.240
Like I was told that they leased the building in downtown East Palestine for six months.
00:46:00.620
So they're going to be there for at least six months.
00:46:03.100
Um, but when I asked them, I walked in and I asked them some questions and I, I brought
00:46:07.680
that up and I asked them, you know, so you guys are going to be here for six months.
00:46:10.400
And they said, we'll be here for as long as we have to.
00:46:14.440
Um, because the, the state of things right now is that if you visit, it's, it seems like
00:46:21.100
But if you talk to people, there's always this kind of uncertainty, uh, in their voices
00:46:25.200
and, and going back to business owners, I asked them, um, you know, has, have you been
00:46:32.620
And, um, at least initially what was going on was Norfolk Southern was asking people to
00:46:37.520
provide three years of back paperwork to qualify for assistance, right.
00:46:44.200
But the problem is, is that there are businesses that are, that haven't been around that long.
00:46:47.560
Um, there was one family that I, I didn't, I didn't find them.
00:46:52.100
It was, I think it was an article in CNN and they opened a coffee shop in East Palestine
00:46:56.000
and they were thinking about opening a second one.
00:46:58.000
I think also in East Palestine, just in a different location, uh, because they said things were
00:47:06.640
Um, there's a building that's right really close to where the train derailed.
00:47:10.960
And I was told that the owner of that building also recently acquired it and was, was like,
00:47:16.840
that's obviously, you know, kind of ruined his plans now.
00:47:20.940
And that's kind of the state where things are is, you know, that's the question is like,
00:47:24.900
is the aid that we're being offered going to be enough in the longterm?
00:47:27.760
Um, and you know, is East Palestine going to make it?
00:47:30.460
And the last thing I'll say, cause I'm going on and on here is that the people there are really
00:47:35.760
Everyone I talked to is obviously, you know, scared.
00:47:42.520
Um, very tough lady, uh, very resilient, um, and very, very like positive.
00:47:48.640
But she told me that, you know, she still feels terrified about what happened here.
00:47:51.960
And a lot of it has to do with all of the unknowns.
00:47:56.960
It's, it's people don't understand what something like this happens to your town kind of what,
00:48:02.180
because it's like you said, the emphasis is so much on moving on, getting business back,
00:48:07.860
And, and people don't realize this kind of the, that longterm impact and what it does
00:48:16.620
Do you look at people and you're like, how could they possibly even think about signing
00:48:21.840
But you got to realize like these people are in the middle of a tragedy.
00:48:31.060
A lot of times they're not sure if anyone is coming to help them, if, if there, if there'll
00:48:35.740
be another opportunity, this might be the only chance to get anything.
00:48:38.680
And a lot of these companies are relying on that, you know, not just in this situation,
00:48:43.780
but all kinds of different disaster situations where they think if we can, you know, just
00:48:48.520
trick people into securing what they can get now, then we can avoid the kind of legal
00:48:55.380
But of course, like you said, you also have these people who have to live in this town.
00:48:58.500
Um, you know, they, if you own a home here, it's not like you can just sell it and move
00:49:02.220
away who in their right mind is buying a home in East Palestine for like the next, you
00:49:09.360
Like, like who's opening a business, who's doing any of that stuff.
00:49:13.260
And so the people who have invested in that community, the people who have, you know,
00:49:17.640
who spend their, their day to day there, the people who have sacrificed for that, it's
00:49:21.960
not, it's not just whether this stuff is going to have a long-term effect on them health
00:49:26.420
wise, which of course is a massive concern and something, a question that they still
00:49:30.440
have no idea what the truth is about, but also their, their mid to, you know, their short
00:49:36.100
to midterm prospects are just devastated because they're, they're locked into a place where
00:49:41.940
no one is sure what's going to happen and what the long-term environmental health effects
00:49:46.820
And no one is going to invest in or, you know, help them figure out what to do next.
00:49:55.160
I, I, one of the people that I spoke with told me that their neighbor had recently gotten
00:50:00.340
a job offer in Florida and he was just about to put his home up for sale when this happened.
00:50:07.560
And now that this is one of these small examples of how far reaching this stuff is, right?
00:50:14.700
And how it has all these angles that we're not even aware of until we ask people, but basically
00:50:19.720
this, this person that had this, you know, this promising job prospect.
00:50:23.940
Well, now all of that is cast in doubt because, you know, good luck selling your home in East
00:50:29.800
Property values have already started to fall, but at the same time, and this is a point that
00:50:34.140
I really wanted to emphasize, these people are really resilient and they they're there
00:50:40.860
Uh, the, I, I spoke to a couple, um, I interviewed the couple and their son.
00:50:45.640
I didn't get a chance to talk to her, uh, the daughter who said that she had some pretty,
00:50:56.460
Uh, Lenny showed me his, um, his waist and he had like a, a rash that ran across it.
00:51:01.400
And this is apparently something that fairly common that people have experienced since the
00:51:05.400
derailment is rashes on their, on their, on their bodies.
00:51:08.560
Um, but the Kleins have lived there their whole lives.
00:51:12.100
Uh, Pam and Lenny met in high school, uh, Lenny has lived in East Palestine his entire
00:51:19.680
He only left briefly, uh, when he was in the air force and that's it.
00:51:25.200
They've worked at the same, uh, plant for decades and they have, they don't have any
00:51:32.200
And the motto of East Palestine is where you want to be.
00:51:38.880
That's true for basically everyone living there.
00:51:40.920
They live there because it's where they want to be.
00:51:44.360
I think like our brains have been so ruined by, you know, modern conceptions of work and
00:51:49.100
life, which is, you have to just basically be rootless and follow the work wherever it
00:51:55.060
They're in East Palestine because East Palestine is home in the truest sense of the word.
00:52:03.560
Um, they're, they're not, they're not ready to just become refugees and, and, and, you know,
00:52:10.560
So, but, but it's also, it's also really admirable.
00:52:13.640
And again, that's why it is the quintessential, uh, small American town.
00:52:20.380
I mean, that is exactly what you need to get through times like this.
00:52:23.260
You know, the, the old saying is, you know, Rome wasn't great.
00:52:26.220
Uh, uh, men didn't love Rome because it was great.
00:52:30.620
And if the people are going to get through this and they're going to, uh, have a community
00:52:35.240
that continues forward, then they absolutely have to have that outlook that it's, it's
00:52:39.060
essential for them to fight for where they are and to value that more than an economic
00:52:43.540
opportunity or a place where they, where they can find some kind of different work.
00:52:46.940
But I wonder too, how this just impacts, I mean, obviously East Palestine, but, but all
00:52:53.960
these different towns that might in, you know, be affected by kind of this breakdown of
00:52:58.120
infrastructure when you feel like you've got to become a political football to get any
00:53:04.880
Like, you know, uh, Trump has to show up and, and, you know, people might have different,
00:53:12.800
I, whether his motivations are, I think it was kind of Trump at his best focusing the
00:53:17.920
attention and forcing the Biden administration and, and, and the media to cover this and care
00:53:23.440
and make a big deal about this, uh, or as big as deal as possible.
00:53:28.120
But the, the fact that a part of your, your city has to basically be figuring out how to
00:53:33.500
become a political football, if you want anything done and the action to be taken has to be a
00:53:37.660
terrible position to be in when you're in the middle, middle of a tragedy like this.
00:53:42.400
And it speaks to the unseriousness of, uh, the, the incumbent political establishment,
00:53:48.660
whatever current year, whatever you want to call it.
00:53:51.820
Like you need, you have to worry about this stuff.
00:53:54.200
Like, are we sufficiently diverse or whatever, uh, to attract the attention that we need in a,
00:54:01.420
It just, it's insane that you actually have to think about that stuff.
00:54:04.740
Um, that's not, you know, how a country should be run, but that's, that's how things are.
00:54:10.580
Uh, but going back to your point about, I mean, I, I, I thought you were going to make a point
00:54:20.700
Uh, but you went in a different direction, but I'll just, I'll touch on it.
00:54:25.240
I spoke to a reporter who told me that there was another team of reporters went to a town
00:54:33.120
that's a few miles away called Negli and they came back because they went there to cover a story
00:54:40.920
about, I think that there was chemicals that were detected in, in a stream in Negli.
00:54:45.460
It's a three, three, three or five miles away from East Palestine.
00:54:49.160
And they came back with headaches and they reported a smell like paint thinner and, you
00:54:55.920
know, to date, or at least when I published my story, there had been more than 43,000,
00:55:03.060
uh, animal deaths attributed to, uh, what happened in East Palestine over across Ohio, obviously
00:55:14.020
So this already has, again, these kind of like far reaching consequences that everyone
00:55:18.620
is wondering, you know, like, does it affect me even though I'm, you know, I'm about an
00:55:24.760
I'm about two hours away, just, just under two hours away from East Palestine.
00:55:28.920
I did the two hour, uh, drive every time I went.
00:55:32.700
Um, but outside of it, you're already kind of seeing this, you know, you have all these,
00:55:36.500
you have other reports of people who had chickens, uh, that, that died.
00:55:40.580
Um, Joy, the woman I spoke with, she said that her chickens acted kind of strange.
00:55:45.200
Um, she, she knows are the people that have animal, like livestock died and stuff like
00:55:52.840
And, and we're kind of in it for the long run where I guess we're not going to know until,
00:55:58.480
you know, if, I mean, this is another part of, of why I wanted to write this story.
00:56:04.860
Like, it seemed like initially there was this kind of like sensationalism.
00:56:09.580
I know you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to, to make this criticism, but basically
00:56:15.180
it seemed like people were, people who were critics of Biden were kind of exploiting it
00:56:20.200
in a way that just like drive clicks and traffic.
00:56:23.260
Like, and, and basically that, that kind of annoyed me because like these people are already
00:56:29.000
terrified and they don't need you to drive traffic to your page by, you know, saying that
00:56:35.140
this is like, you're all going to die of cancer in five years or something like that.
00:56:38.720
And just like scaring the, you know, scaring them basically.
00:56:42.740
And so I think that's an important part of this is like getting, I guess, getting the facts
00:56:48.200
out there and helping people to understand instead of just trying to scare them.
00:56:53.780
I mean, that's, that's, that's the worst part of that kind of stuff is like, you basically
00:56:57.580
just gin up tons of like fear over what happened, but then you completely subtract the people
00:57:05.120
So, yeah, you, you really need, like I said, it just, it needs to be a situation where you
00:57:11.540
don't have to be a political football to get the attention that's necessary.
00:57:16.860
There should be a consistent application of, you know, just, just basic interest by people
00:57:23.320
and the wellbeing of the people there and the, the, the necessary testing, the necessary
00:57:29.620
That should not be something that either has to be completely driven by media attention
00:57:33.420
to the point where it's hyperbolic and scaring everyone or the point where it's non-existent
00:57:45.760
Are there, are there any people who are supposed to be, we got all these NGOs that are interested
00:57:51.940
Are there any interested to be on the ground testing things, helping these people out, providing
00:57:57.620
that, that, that assistance, you know, in, in the, in the area?
00:58:01.940
I didn't see any, like, I, I didn't, I didn't see any kind of like, you know, like the, like
00:58:09.800
Like I didn't, there's, when I went to East Palestine the last time, um, I didn't really
00:58:15.500
see any kind of like fanfare or anything like that.
00:58:17.420
I'm sure that there are probably like some small groups involved, but again, it's nowhere
00:58:21.920
near like the level of activism that you see in other cases.
00:58:25.140
Like, I don't know of any like Hollywood celebrity who's spoken about, you know, the plight of East
00:58:30.020
Palestine or like we stand with East Palestine or something like it just, it just, as far as
00:58:35.920
And it's funny because, uh, on the floor, on the, the window of one of the shops in
00:58:40.960
downtown East Palestine, there's a sign that says East Palestine lives matter.
00:58:44.420
So I think there's definitely a sense of that there.
00:58:47.040
Like the, the locals are aware that like actually our small town matters too.
00:58:51.220
And you should be paying attention to it, even if it's not fashionable because it's the right
00:58:58.260
No, no one's over there, you know, gluing themselves to artwork.
00:59:01.260
So no one seems to really care about the environmental impact here, but yeah, you, you see these kinds
00:59:07.260
of things happen all the time and you end up with, you know, benefit concerts or something
00:59:11.280
you, you, like I said, you think someone, uh, would, would be there at least, you know,
00:59:15.840
have raising awareness or, you know, getting, getting some kind of aid there driving.
00:59:20.300
Again, we got this massive NGO complex that seems to have plenty of time to send people
00:59:25.500
everywhere, but you know, just not responding in this way.
00:59:29.280
So are there any, uh, outside of obviously the fact that these people are resilient and
00:59:36.460
many of them are committed to making this work, which is incredibly admirable, but are
00:59:42.800
there any efforts being made to change things, hold anyone accountable, change regulations,
00:59:50.980
figure out, you know, legislation going forward that could, that could improve this situation?
00:59:56.720
Is any action being spurred by the fact that we had this major disaster that's, you know,
01:00:05.960
It might've even been the day that I published it.
01:00:08.540
JD Vance and Sherrod Brown, a Republican and Democrat, were talking about bipartisan legislation
01:00:14.980
in response to East Palestine, uh, with that is related to transportation and stuff.
01:00:21.440
So I think that, that was, to my knowledge, like that was like the, the major development,
01:00:26.440
but I'm not really aware of, of much more than that.
01:00:29.780
It was a really, it was great to see that, right?
01:00:32.320
Like it was a rare moment of, of, I think, bipartisans.
01:00:35.280
Usually the word bipartisan is actually a bad word and it means you should run for your life
01:00:38.680
because it's like, when you hear bipartisan, the next thing you're going to hear is like
01:00:44.360
Or bipartisan aid for Ukraine or something like that.
01:00:47.100
Like it's typically nothing good, but this seems to be like a rare moment when, when
01:00:53.740
Uh, and, and so, yeah, it was, it was nice to see that.
01:01:00.340
Um, Pete Buttigieg has only spoken about East Palestine to basically complain that he thinks
01:01:06.680
it's unfair that the response of the Biden administration has been maligned.
01:01:11.480
And, and that basically like, it's kind of like, Hey, you know, Tucker Carlson says that
01:01:15.800
he cares about people in Ohio, but I bet he's never been to TJ Maxx.
01:01:18.880
Like, like that, that's basically, that's actually what he said, by the way, there's like, there's
01:01:26.600
They're just, they're basically the people who are, uh, you know, the adults in the room,
01:01:31.080
um, are just more concerned with saving face than actually helping people.
01:01:36.480
So obviously there are exceptions like Vance and Brown, um, but for the most part, yeah,
01:01:41.860
I mean, again, I was, I was glad that I waited as long as I did because right around the time
01:01:48.580
I published it, it kind of felt like a tension over East Palestine was petering out.
01:01:55.420
And I'm sure you saw the uptick in people reporting about derailments, uh, like on social
01:02:03.160
media, like on Twitter, like, like every time a train, you know,
01:02:06.480
skipped off a track, there was like a video that went viral or something like that, which
01:02:10.560
is, I guess like good in the sense that it brings attention to the fact that this does
01:02:15.620
But on the other hand, what happens in places like East Palestine, uh, which is a, I think
01:02:21.200
an, an, an exceptionally bad case that gets forgotten in, in the sauce of all of these
01:02:28.080
like, you know, viral videos of, of other incidents that are bad, but ultimately it's, you
01:02:32.360
know, it's not carrying hazardous chemicals and no one is hurt or something like that.
01:02:36.420
There, there, there are no long-term consequences for the community when like a train derails
01:02:42.780
Uh, you're talking about a massive train that derailed carrying some really nasty chemicals
01:02:48.100
that have been, you know, that were released into the, into the atmosphere and also buried
01:02:54.060
in the ground, uh, in a state that is, you know, home to a lot of like great farmland.
01:02:59.440
And there, there's a lot of implications about, you know, the future of, of, uh, of, of what
01:03:10.320
I think that's a huge part of it is just this, uh, it's the next big thing, uh, cycle, right?
01:03:18.960
And yeah, you get a little bit of extra scrutiny on the rail, uh, you know, system during this
01:03:24.400
time, but again, like you're talking about, these people don't live in your new cycle.
01:03:28.840
These people, people don't, don't, they, they shouldn't have to desperately hope that the,
01:03:34.560
that the national media will pay attention to them long enough for them to receive the
01:03:39.120
kinds of aid and the kind of response that they deserve.
01:03:46.620
The bipartisan is almost always a terrible thing to hear because it usually means that the
01:03:51.000
uniparty has decided how, how to visit that upon something terrible.
01:03:54.400
But it's so sad that, that it's so rare to see like two guys who are from a, you know,
01:04:01.540
around an area saying, Hey, we should work together to make sure that these people are
01:04:05.560
taken care of and that this doesn't happen again.
01:04:07.840
And that's, you know, reminds you, you, you have that, that, that 10 seconds of, oh, that's
01:04:13.680
Like that's actually what representative government is supposed to do.
01:04:17.720
But we realize that so much more of it is driven by these new cycles in the next and
01:04:21.920
focusing on the next thing, as opposed to like actually making measurable and important
01:04:27.180
changes to protect and improve the lives of people who get you elected and, and, and who
01:04:33.320
employ you and, and what you're supposed to do there.
01:04:36.080
And so I, I am glad that you are covering this and I'm glad we could talk about it today.
01:04:40.840
And I think it's important for people to remember that these, this can be your city.
01:04:55.520
They're going to continue to increase and you need to have an understanding of what, what
01:05:02.520
to do in these scenarios, because like you said, you know, the, these poor first responders
01:05:07.280
who are just stuck being exposed to this stuff and, and who knows what kind of long-term side
01:05:12.780
effects it's going to have and who knows what kind of, uh, you know, insurance or medical
01:05:18.420
care or, or, you know, those kinds of things will be there for them in the long run.
01:05:22.280
You just, people need to understand that this stuff matters and you, you should have a government
01:05:29.200
You have a legal system that holds companies accountable, irregardless of how diverse a
01:05:35.100
community is or how well it holds a new cycle together or how many celebrities it can
01:05:39.600
get to do a benefit concert for it that you shouldn't have to live like this.
01:05:43.320
You should have a system that cares for the people under it and, and shouldn't be driven
01:05:48.200
entirely by how much media attention one can derive from any given tragedy.
01:05:55.820
And yeah, I mean, that's, that's why that's, that's a big, there are different reasons.
01:06:00.800
There are obviously many reasons why I wrote this story, but that was a big part of it is,
01:06:03.940
is to show that the rot is really deep and it doesn't change unless enough people care
01:06:10.280
and it doesn't change unless enough people start paying attention, which is again, hard
01:06:16.000
for all the reasons that you just outlined, but it's still a worthy effort.
01:06:23.580
Well guys, if you have any questions for myself or Pedro, go ahead and get them in now.
01:06:27.700
We're going to go ahead and start wrapping everything up.
01:06:29.820
But before we do, Pedro, where can people find your excellent work?
01:06:33.940
So I am the, like Orrin said, I'm the politics editor at Chronicles.
01:06:37.920
So you can read my column at chroniclesmagazine.org.
01:06:45.700
Contra is where I published this long dive into East Palestine.
01:06:50.840
The piece is called The Poison Train, East Palestine and the Derailment of Norfolk Southern 32N.
01:06:58.700
And I would encourage you to subscribe because this kind of, this kind of work.
01:07:02.760
I do it because I believe in it, but it's also extremely time consuming and requires travel and all that stuff.
01:07:09.780
So I appreciate all the support that I can get to do more of it.
01:07:12.740
Because I also just really enjoy telling these stories and allowing people that are affected by them to speak for themselves.
01:07:19.580
Yeah, and that's another reason I wanted to have you on because there's so much of this that is just aggregation.
01:07:25.140
It's just one news site grabbing information from another report, from another thing.
01:07:30.560
You know, people are, there's so little actual reporting gets done.
01:07:35.400
And so I think people should support it when they can.
01:07:38.220
And I think, guys, if you, I know we went over a lot of material here, which you really should read the original piece because Pedro does have the receipts in there.
01:07:47.820
There's a lot of complicated connections, like I said, lobbying efforts, all kinds of things that get detailed.
01:07:54.700
So make sure that you're checking that out as well.
01:07:57.920
Also, guys, of course, if this is your first time here, make sure that you are subscribing to this channel.
01:08:03.300
And if you want to listen to this as a podcast, of course, you can go check out the Oren McIntyre show.
01:08:11.780
If you do, make sure that you go ahead and give a review and a rating that really helps with all the algorithm magic and everything.
01:08:19.100
If you want to subscribe to anything else, the Rumble, the Substack, the Odyssey, follow on Twitter Gap, the links for all that stuff is down below.
01:08:30.060
Make sure you're checking out his excellent reporting.
01:08:32.840
And as always, guys, I'll talk to you next time.