How a Derailed Train Galvanized an Ohio Town, and Congress

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This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today we look at how a derailed train in East Palestine, Ohio evolved from a local crisis into a national story that has now commanded the attention of both parties in Congress. My colleague Emily Cochrane has been reporting from East Palestine.

It’s Monday, March 6th.

Emily, I want to begin this conversation with a little bit of candor which is that we have struggled here on the show to figure out how to cover the story of this train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio because it’s really been a story dominated by a lot of unanswered questions. But that is now starting to change, and the story is moving into the halls of Congress. And that makes you, really, the perfect person to talk to because as it happens — as listeners will remember — you’re a former congressional reporter for The Times who has just become a national correspondent now covering this story in Ohio. So let’s begin with the basics of what exactly happened here.

So this begins the night of February 3 as this nearly two mile long train is making its way through Ohio and it’s carrying a bunch of cargo but most notably some toxic chemicals. And as the train is progressing, a wheel bearing starts to overheat, so a sensor records that rising temperature and sounds an alarm on the train. And as soon as the alarm reaches the crew, the crew slows the train down. But that’s not enough to stop it from going off the tracks, and they see fire. They see smoke. They separate their locomotives. The crew is OK, but now this train is derailed on the outskirts of a little village called East Palestine in Ohio.

And what do we need to know about this village, East Palestine?

It’s roughly 4,700 people. It’s sort of in the Rust Belt of Ohio, right between Youngstown and Pittsburgh, and it’s a more rural, formerly industrial area, very red, Trump country. They voted overwhelmingly for the former President in 2016 and 2020. But for a lot of people there, it’s a place where their families have always lived, and it was a place where they could still afford to have their own farm, own a few acres, and be close enough to a bigger city if they needed to be but not be of the big city.

Got it. So describe this derailment in this village of East Palestine.

So the crew report seeing smoke and fire, and the fire department responds. They try to take care of the fire and try to take care of this train that’s now off the tracks, but over the weekend, it becomes clear that there’s a serious problem. Some of the toxic chemicals in the cargo are at risk of exploding, and one of the chemicals people are the most worried about is called vinyl chloride. It’s a colorless gas used in a lot of plastics, and it can be really toxic.

Got it.

So railroad officials, government officials, the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania — which shows you how close this was to the border of the two states — they’re on the phone over the weekend. And they’ve since described it as two bad options, either you wait it out, there’s an explosion that could send shrapnel and all sorts of things across the area, or you do a controlled chemical burn. And the railroad’s preference is to do the chemical burn, and ultimately, the governors and local officials decide to go with it.

And for those of us who don’t know, what exactly is a controlled burn?

So essentially the plan is to puncture the cars that were carrying these chemicals, drain out the chemicals, and burn them off. So before doing that, they make a point of evacuating folks within a mile radius. Sheriffs and other police officials are going door-to-door knocking, saying, “you need to get out. This is a life or death scenario because we’re going to burn off these chemicals.” And officials go ahead with what they had promised. They begin this controlled burn of the chemical cargo, but the consequence of that is that it sets off this giant, terrifying-looking black plume of smoke that not only covers the evacuation zone, but it blankets the region. There are farms in Pennsylvania that are now unable to see their neighbors across the way because the smoke is so thick. And —

Wow.

— these stunning images of this giant plume over this small town, this is the moment where a lot more people start paying attention. And a lot more people suddenly have questions not just about the derailment and the consequences of a train with toxic cargo going off the tracks, but the consequences of this plume of chemicals across the area.

Right. This is the moment when I think a lot of us started to pay attention to this story because we’re watching this black plume of smoke on social media. But at the time, we’re being told — as are people in this town — that this is what the company thinks is the best and safest course and local officials have signed off on it.

Right, but I think what happens now as a result of that plume is that this is no longer about a train derailment. It’s also about the lasting consequences of burning off toxic chemicals on the outskirts of a small village and what that means for living in this region long-term. So government officials start testing the soil, testing the water, and testing the air quality, and all the tests have so far shown that there’s not significant amounts of vinyl chloride, one of the most prominent of the toxic chemicals in this cargo, the one that folks are really concerned about because that could potentially have long-term health impacts. The tests have so far not shown significant amounts, but for the people in that town, it’s hard to reconcile those results when there’s a bunch of dead fish in the creeks that run through their neighborhood. It’s hard to reconcile those results when people are suddenly reporting migraines and rashes and other ailments that just didn’t occur before the chemical burn, and it’s hard to reconcile those results when the railroad company is doing the tests in conjunction with the EPA. And there’s a lot of mistrust of the railroad operator, their role in the derailment, and there’s a lot of mistrust that the tests are right.

And you’re on the ground talking to people about this mistrust and this fear, so what exactly are they telling you?

I talked to this one man, Mike McKim. He’s a beekeeper, and he’s Palestine.

This for me — like, my mom and dad live in the house right behind here. And this is my business, and I live a few streets over.

So not only does he have questions about the health of his business, the ability to keep taking care of his bees, and the safety of eating their honey, he’s also thinking about his kids —

My mom makes Icees for everybody in the summertime and, you know, we set sprinklers out for all the kids in the neighborhood. We all congregate here, and I feel like that’s kind of taken away from us. Is it going to be safe for the kids to play in puddles this summer?

— and their ability to get dirt under their nails and play in the grass.

We like to go mushroom hunting, go find morels. We love being outside. It’s like — it’s a little tainted, you know what I mean? It’s a little bit — it’s a little tainted.

Through COVID and being told you couldn’t gather, through the supply chain issues and the pains of inflation, you could always go outside here, and the derailment and the plume just really shattered the security in that for a lot of the people here. And that’s where you really see fears and mistrust just ignite across the region.

East Palestine residents say they feel confused and left in the dark.

There is no way we are safe being here.

We just want answers.

Locals say they’re feeling the effects of the toxic chemicals.

To this moment right now, I have just a really low-grade constant headache.

I’m raising three granddaughters. They’ve had rashes. They’ve been sick.

Some have left their homes entirely.

I don’t trust anybody right now. None of us know.

So amid all of this fear and mistrust comes the inevitable — the politics.

This could be an ecological disaster. We need to stay on top of it. That’s exactly what our office is doing.

You have Senator JD Vance, newly-elected Republican freshman from Ohio who came into the national spotlight because he wrote a book that focused on white working-class grievance making this same connection here.

I’ve got to say, the Secretary of Transportation not talking about this issue, not talking about the frequency of train derailments in our country, talking about how we have too many white male construction workers instead of the fact that our trains are crashing at alarming rates — the guy needs to do his job.

He joins other Republicans in calling out Biden administration officials for not doing enough in the area, and that’s something that then former President Trump taps into.

To the people of East Palestine and to the nearby communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania, we have told you loud and clear you are not forgotten.

He — obviously looking to challenge President Biden in the 2024 election — comes to East Palestine and makes a point of saying, I came to visit, where is President Biden? Now Democrats are quick to point the finger right back.

Well, our personnel were on the ground within hours of this incident.

Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation Secretary, argued that there were administration officials who were on the ground very quickly after this happened.

You’ve got EPA there. You’ve got the C.D.C Health and Human Services there to look after the health side.

Not the political appointees but the staff who really have the on-the-ground knowledge here. And they also point to the fact that under former President Trump, you saw a lot of safety and environmental regulations rolled back.

His administration was anti-regulation and pro-industry every step of the way.

And they argue that the former president’s policies didn’t do anything to stop this from happening, and in fact, they say it could have made it worse.

So to these conservative leaders who are coming to town, this is now a story of Democratic neglect for working-class Ohioans, and in a sense, they’re seeking to stoke these fears of that plume for some political benefit. Democrats are showing up and saying no, no, we have not forgotten about this community. Actually, we’ve been here since the start of this accident, and we are assuring you that everything is going to be fine.

Yes, it’s just another instance where you have this political firestorm on top of a real tragedy and on top of a community that is hurting and has a lot of questions and anxiety.

So that’s also why it’s interesting to me that a few days later, you do see some prominent members of both parties come together and start working on legislation that could potentially address a lot of the problems at the heart of this derailment.

We’ll be right back.

So Emily, tell us about this legislation that’s emerging from this accident and that surprisingly, given the political firestorm you just described before the break, somehow involves elected officials from both parties.

So you have these disagreements about who has forgotten Ohioans, who showed up to East Palestine first, who should have been there from the get-go, but what both parties can agree on is that there is a common villain here and that’s Norfolk Southern, the company that was operating the train that derailed and one of the largest rail companies in the country. And that is at the heart of this first bit of bipartisan legislation you see — regulations and tighter safety rules against the railroads and the railroad company.

Well how regulated is a company like Norfolk Southern and the entire freight rail industry up to this point?

So freight rail is generally considered relatively safe with about 1,000 derailments a year. You want the number of accidents to be zero, but injuries and death aren’t that common because of derailments. And incidents like this one involving hazardous material are rare. But when you look at Norfolk Southern in particular, the rate of accidents has gone up over the last four years, and it comes as the company is reporting record operating profits and spending a lot of money and time lobbying against new rules that are intended to make trains even safer. And you have railroad unions coming off some really contentious battles about their contracts and their protections saying that their workforce has been slashed, there’s not enough people or safety precautions being taken to make rails even safer for both the communities these trains are passing through but also the people who are operating these trains.

So they’re making a link between their working conditions and an accident like the one that just happened in East Palestine?

Yes, and that’s where lawmakers in both parties are seeing an opportunity to do something.

Well, which lawmakers exactly are we talking about, and what exactly are they proposing be done?

So you have the four senators whose states are at the heart of this derailment. You have the two Democrats from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey and John Fetterman, but then you have the bipartisan delegation from Ohio. You have JD Vance, who’s a Republican, and Sherrod Brown, who’s a Democrat facing reelection this midterm cycle. And they sign onto this bill along with Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, and Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, so a decent amount of bipartisan collaboration, by today’s standards. And then another important element here is when Chuck Schumer, the Majority Leader who controls the Senate floor, comes out and says, I think this is a worthwhile piece of legislation, and I will work to help get it through the Senate. I will work to help get those 60 votes you need to advance any piece of legislation. That’s a hurdle a lot of legislation just can’t meet right now, but if it does clear the hurdle, President Biden has said he will sign it.

Right, so walk us through the key provisions of this bipartisan legislation that’s being proposed and how these elements would have applied to this case or could prevent future cases like it.

So one of the biggest concerns we heard about in the aftermath of this was that the local communities didn’t know that this train was carrying these toxic chemicals. The current regulations say if a train is carrying flammable liquids in either 20 consecutive cars or 35 cars total, they have to notify the states they’re traveling through and they also have to meet a whole other round of tougher safety rules. But the Ohio train didn’t meet that standard, so it didn’t need to take those additional precautions.

Interesting.

So the legislation would effectively ensure that any train carrying this kind of cargo would have to let the communities know that it was coming through because that was crucial context that first responders and government officials would have needed in the immediate aftermath of the derailment. The heat of the train car, investigators have said, was so high that it melted the plastic placards off of the train car that would have told first responders what was inside. So had they had that notice, that would have just been an extra layer of precaution and knowledge that can be pretty critical in the aftermath of a derailment like this.

That’s really interesting. OK, what else?

So you remember that at the heart of this derailment was a hot wheel bearing, an overheating wheel bearing that the crew was notified about very, very late in the game. So what the legislation would do is it would require stricter scrutiny of parts like a wheel bearing and other elements of the train car to ensure that malfunctions are caught earlier and safety precautions are stronger to avoid something like that happening again.

So basically heightened inspections and safety protocols.

Exactly. So as a result of that, the measure would be really toughen the inspection requirements for rail cars, the parts, and railway detectors just to make sure that not only are there precautions taken before the trains get on the railroad but it’s possible to catch them early on in the process of something malfunctioning. And then to really back up the increased emphasis on safety here, it would also set aside money for federal agencies to just do more research and development about how to make tank cars stronger and safer going forward.

Emily, it seems notable and perhaps even noble for lawmakers to come together after an accident like this and create legislation, but is it possible that this legislation, because it’s been crafted so specifically to speak to what happened in East Palestine, is really only addressing what happened there? I mean, should these provisions potentially be wider in scope, or is this, in fact, a relatively safe industry that doesn’t really require broad new regulation? In other words, is what happened here, especially given the chemicals involved, an exception?

We are in an era of divided government now. Any bill that becomes law needs to not only get enough Republican support in the Senate but now needs to win the support of a Republican-controlled House. And I think, one, it’s not clear if this legislation can do that, and two, it guarantees that any measure will not go as far as Democrats and their allies, particularly in the unions, want it to go. And I think there is a fear that this is not going to be an exception, particularly at a moment when the Biden administration wants rail to become even more prominent in American life. They’re putting a lot more money towards it. They want it to be a safer, bigger, more utilized aspect of transportation in this country, and I think there’s a lot of fear that as trains continue to become a bigger part of the transportation industry, you will see more derailments. You will see more accidents if those safety precautions aren’t strengthened at the same time.

Right. What about Norfolk Southern? Is it opposing this legislation?

So it hasn’t explicitly weighed in on this legislation yet, but the reality is the company’s facing a ton of political pressure from both sides. The chief executive is set to testify before the Senate, and I think that’ll be a pretty heated confrontation between lawmakers and the company. And it’s facing a lot of pressure across the board to make sure that it not only takes responsibility for cleaning up this accident but making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Right. It seems safe to say that this company is not exactly at the peak of its political power to oppose legislation like this, given what just happened. So Emily, back to the town of East Palestine itself. Now that there’s all this activity in Washington and now that so many officials from both parties have visited the community and committed themselves to trying to do something to make this right, how were the people there that you have spent all this time talking to feeling in this moment? Are they heartened or not really at all?

I think they appreciate the attention. There’s a lot of concern that at some point, the national attention is going to move away from their community and they’re going to be left with these long-term consequences and questions. I think the reality is the fears have made a lot of people for the first time question if they want to keep living in East Palestine and the surrounding area, if it’s safe to keep their kids there, if it’s safe to make this the home where they spend the rest of their lives. And then even for the people who are determined to see this through, if you will, who are determined to keep their lives here, there’s also a fear about a lasting stigma.

Short-term, it’s going to affect everything here. No one wants to come here.

I talked to this couple, the Elzers, who own a greenhouse on the outskirts of East Palestine, and they’re wrestling with that now.

I’m not so concerned about the land as I am the stigma about the land. You know, are people going to be comfortable that our water’s OK?

You know, that no matter what they do, no matter if the water, the soil, the air keeps coming back as safe, that people are always going to remember them and their businesses and their products as the place where this toxic plume happened.

You know, from a business standpoint, no one’s coming here to shop. You can go 20 miles north of here and buy what we have here, or you can come here and risk your life and buy what we have.

Which you’re not risking your life but —

No, but that’s the perception.

— that’s the perception.

That’s what I’m saying.

You know, why are people going to buy from their greenhouse when you can get plants from a separate greenhouse that’s dozens and dozens of miles away from the derailment site?

And the answer is, for a lot of people, they wouldn’t.

That’s a really hard reality, and it’s hard to see how any legislation could change that.

Well Emily, Thank you very much. We really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Over the weekend, another freight train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed in a different part of Ohio, this time near the city of Springfield, about 200 miles away from East Palestine. Norfolk Southern said that no hazardous materials were on board, but local authorities ordered those who live nearby to shelter in place out of, quote, “an abundance of caution.”

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. Over the weekend, dozens of nations agreed on language for an historic treaty that would protect the biodiversity of the world’s oceans. Until now, no international body or agreement has been primarily focused on marine biodiversity, which is under growing threat from climate change, overfishing, and underwater mining. And doctors have removed a cancerous skin lesion from President Biden’s chest, according to a letter released on Friday from Biden’s physician. The letter described the lesion as a basal cell carcinoma, said that all cancerous tissue was successfully removed and that no further treatment is required.

Today’s episode was produced by Eric Krupke and Nina Feldman with help from Shannon Lin, Mooj Zadie, and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Patricia Willens, contains original music by Marian Lozano and Elisheba Ittoop, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.