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It is objectionable to heap scorn upon them at this time of loss and confusion.
A post appeared recently, Irretrievably Broken in East Palestine, about the multi-layered train wreck unfolding in East Palestine, slathered in snark and layered with condescension about the small community of largely Trump supporters with not one name of an actual human being impacted by the aftermath of the incident. I found the tone and the substance of the article to be highly offensive and decided to jot down a few words from an entirely different perspective: the actual human beings victimized by what is beginning to look clearly like the negligence — very possibly, based on the most recent reports, gross negligence- of the train operator, Norfolk Southern, compounded by the almost incomprehensible callousness of the worst President in American History and his outrageously incompetent Transportation Secretary, whose arrogance, hubris and hauteur defy description.
To set the table for my responses, below are a few highlights from the previous article. If this was your sum total of information about the disaster you might be excused for thinking (a) what’s the fuss about since all the government’s tests check out near-perfectly and (b) these poor deplorables in red caps are nothing but money-grubbers looking for the first real money they have ever seen in their pathetic lives.
There are a lot of things broken in this country. But nothing is sadder than the sight of a broken people. They are angry and they want answers. But they are so broken they refuse the answers. Everything is a lie, everything is a coverup, everything is a conspiracy. Or is it just an opportunity?
***
State and local environmental people have been collecting air, water, and soil samples since the day of the accident. Almost all results have been encouraging, but the good news has been met with resistance. Towns downriver are not reporting elevated levels of the contaminants. The air is testing well. Yesterday they were getting butyl acrylate readings of under 3 parts per billion, where 560 parts per billion is considered hazardous. The municipal water system is testing fine, although local residents with well water were advised to use bottled water until their wells are tested.
***
So far, five lawsuits have been filed in Federal Court. Lawyers are outraged and are determined to get 67% justice for the residents of the town and 33% for themselves, of course.
I hate to be cynical, but I fear a lot of this is performative and an opportunity to cash in, to move out, and start new someplace else, not that I particularly blame them. …
There are many sides to this story, and the stories of the human beings affected by it, and the previous post represented views from the – corporate? skeptical? hubristic?- standpoint that everything is going just swimmingly (not an apt simile in view of the “rainbow” water in the streams) and just give them a little money and they’ll go away. This post will relate, as briefly as possible because there have been so many lives impacted by this tragedy, the view of a few of the residents of this “poor river town”, actual people like those named in the title whose stories we are finally hearing about thanks to excellent reporting by several members of that endangered species, working journalists who go out and actually meet and interview the people affected (what a concept! why didn’t anyone think of that before?) and then report the facts they have discovered.
One of the very best of that vanishing breed is Salena Zito, who published an extensive piece in The Free Press entitled “We Don’t Know What We Are Breathing”: A Report From East Palestine, tells the poignant story of several residents of East Palestine, including Kaylee Jackson, Christa Graves, Tammy Tsai, Mayor Conaway, David Lonsbrough. One – or at least this one – cannot read their accounts and not be touched by a sense of impending doom for this village of 5,000 residents. Here are excerpts from her interviews with some of the people of East Palestine:
Kaylee Jackson:
I spoke to more than a dozen people over the past few days and many say they feel dizzy and have headaches. They worry about breathing in fumes that cause cancer. “It is a big fear,” said Kaylee Jackson, 40, who does odd jobs for a living. “These chemicals literally got sucked up into the air during the controlled burn and the derailment. Well, where do clouds go? What comes up, must come down.”
Several locals have taken photos of dead fish floating in the nearby creeks. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates the chemical blast affected more than seven miles of streams, killing some 3,500 small fish.
Kaylee Jackson, 40, and her fiancé, Andrew Mayer, 30, of East Palestine, stand near a stream by their home that crews are monitoring for contamination.
Barbara Kugler:
For three decades, Barbara Kugler has lived less than a block from the Norfolk Southern railway line that crosses through East Palestine, Ohio. Up until this month, the sound of an oncoming freight train’s warning whistle—long, long, short, long—used to be a comfort.
But now when she hears it, she tenses.
“For thirty years that sound meant home. It was part of the rhythm of our lives,” says Kugler, 52, who was born and raised in a town one mile away and spends her days minding her grandkids. “Now I find myself flinching every time I hear it because I don’t know what is coming next.”
Just before 9 p.m. on February 3, the noise of a train screeching to a halt followed by a large explosion jolted Kugler and her husband off the couch and out onto the street.
“I thought we needed to get out. This is the end of it. The town’s burning down,” she said.
They saw dozens of railway cars strewn about like a kid’s Tonka trucks, with flames and smoke shooting toward the sky. The blaze was so hot, Kugler said she had to remove her winter coat.
“It was like a bomb going off,” Kugler said. “The cars just hitting and hitting—it was this constant sound of them banging together.”
Barbara Kugler, 52, stands by the railroad tracks near her home in East Palestine, Ohio, on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023.
Tammy Tsai:
“Everything has changed. This was our forever home, my husband has a chiropractic practice here, we have a good life, had a good life, an idyllic life, and all of that changed in an instant,” Tsai said. “The lack of caring that has come from the federal government and Norfolk Southern has been shameful.”
***
Tsai, an actress who moved here from California and does a fair amount of film and stage work in Pittsburgh, feels like her world has shattered. She said she and her husband Rick are moving to a cabin they own a few miles away until they have a clearer understanding of the fallout.
“In a week or two this will all be gone,” she says, pointing to the media vehicles in the community parking lot. “But our problems are only beginning. We’ve lost our best capital—the values of our home. Now we have to think about what the cost will be on our health, something we may not know for years.”
“Nothing will ever be the same in East Palestine,” she says flatly. “Nothing.”
Tammy Tsai, 62, of East Palestine, said the federal government’s reaction to the crisis is “shameful.”
Indeed, nothing will ever be the same as monetary damages cannot restore their “forever home”, their swimming holes, their identification of the whistle of the oncoming train with the “sense of home”. It is hard to imagine the sense of loss of these American citizens, compounded by the incalculably hateful attitude of the “elites” on high. Peter Sztrok and Lisa Page are probably texting gleefully away at the plight of these “deplorable” “Wal Mart shoppers”! (“I could smell the Trump support”, a phrase which will enter the Hall of Fame of pure hatred and animus toward one’s fellow human beings.).
One of the best pieces of real reporting came from a most unlikely source— The New Republic, surely no friend of anything Red, Right, Trump or Republican. In that column, “Life After the Ohio Train Derailment: Trouble Breathing, Dying Animals, and Saying Goodbye”, the authors again do that almost risibly old-fashioned thing: they went out and actually met and interviewed the actual people impacted by this horrific catastrophe instead of just copying and pasting from wire reports without ever even really knowing where East Palestine was, much less care. Here are the accounts of the residents they interviewed, detailing their physical symptoms and their frustrations in trying to deal with various government entities and the wrongdoer which caused their misery, Norfolk Southern:
Amanda Greathouse:
Amanda Greathouse, who resides near the crash site, evacuated about one hour after the incident. She only returned home on February 10, a full week later, to retrieve personal effects like bank and ID cards. Even then, as she and her family walked through the home donning N-95 masks and gloves, an ominous odor pervaded. After leaving, her eyes burned and itched, her throat was sore, and she had a rash; her husband and both her sisters had migraines.
The next day, the family went to Norfolk Southern’s community family assistance center to obtain the $1,000 inconvenience check. After a four-hour wait, Greathouse was informed they needed more documents. The family was forced to return to their home again to retrieve additional documents, and left with renewed symptoms.
Taylor Holzer:
Reports of suffering animals, from dogs and cats to fish and chickens, continue to accumulate. Taylor Holzer, an animal caretaker, lost one of his foxes. Others are in poor condition with faces swollen, stomachs upset, and eyes watering. Holzer’s dog, who hadn’t returned home until after the evacuation order was lifted, has begun coughing and gagging. “He will go into coughing fits so hard his front legs bow and he looks so uncomfortable,” Holzer said.
Andrea Belden:
After the derailment, Andrea Belden noticed her two-year-old cat Leo lying motionless, heart racing and breathing labored. He remained that way overnight. Leo was found to have congestive heart failure. Fluid filled around his heart and lungs, and his liver enzymes shot up 690 percent higher than normal levels. Medication wasn’t working. He seldom moved, ate or drank, or went to the bathroom. To continue treatment, Belden would’ve had to come up with up to $18,000. She sought help from Norfolk Southern, with a letter from the vet explaining Leo’s issues likely to be connected to the vinyl chloride. The company said they would not pay for it now, but would possibly entertain it in the future. Belden couldn’t afford to continue the treatment. Norfolk Southern’s delay forced her to make an impossible decision. Leo was put to sleep. Belden still owed $9,678.23 for the treatment Leo received.
Her story has special relevance for us as My Lady’s big cat is also named Leo and as owners of a new Boston Terrier puppy we are painfully familiar with the cost of Veterinary care. It is interesting to recall this sneering comment from the previous article:
One resident, who claims the spill killed her two-year-old cat, has already set up a GoFundMe account.
Indeed, Ms. Belden did, in fact, set up a GoFundMe account, which can readily be accessed here, and we now know why she did so and it wasn’t quite the grasping avarice of a money-grubber which drove her to do it – just someone who was in need when faced with not only the decision to put down her pet, an unimaginable heartbreak, but impossible vet bills in the process. Pity the condescension was not preceded by the most minimal clicking of a few keys to determine the true story instead of resorting to quick and dirty innuendo.
Therese Vigliotti:
On February 6, the day of the controlled burn, Therese Vigliotti, who lives 15 miles north of East Palestine, was having a cigarette and cup of coffee as she noticed a slight odor in the air. During her next smoke break, she noticed her coffee tasted strange. She then realized her tongue felt funny, and her lips and soft palate felt numb. Her throat began to hurt. Throughout the week, her throat continued to hurt and she felt a burning sensation on her tongue. She even found blood in her stool. “I appreciate the hell out of you for reaching out to me [because] I’m honestly really scared,” Vigliotti said. “And please understand I am not losing my wits over the whole thing.”
“I’m honestly really scared!” Who wouldn’t be, facing the prospect of long-term ailments up to and including cancer and death? And, who, exactly, in our (theoretically, sadly) free society has the power and the knowledge to say that all these people are lying? That 350,000 fish did not die? That many animals, including Mr. Holzer’s fox and Ms. Belden’s cat Leo, did not die? That Ms. Belden’s veterinarian lied in his letter to Norfolk Southern that “Leo’s issues [were] likely to be connected to the vinyl chloride”? And if the vet did lie, why? Just another money-grubber?
An extensive article recently appeared detailing similar accounts of actual damages and ailments and damages incurred as a result of an incident which many, including the “President” of the United States,would like to pretend never happened in the New York Post entitled “‘Sound like Mickey Mouse’: East Palestine residents’ shock illnesses after derailment”. One of those is Wade Lovett and here is his account:
Wade Lovett:
EAST PALESTINE, OHIO – Wade Lovett’s been having trouble breathing since the Feb. 3 Norfolk South train derailment and toxic explosion here. In fact, his voice sounds as if he’s been inhaling helium.
“Doctors say I definitely have the chemicals in me but there’s no one in town who can run the toxicological tests to find out which ones they are,” Lovett, 40, an auto detailer, said in an extremely high-pitched voice. “My voice sounds like Mickey Mouse. My normal voice is low. It’s hard to breathe, especially at night. My chest hurts so much at night I feel like I’m drowning. I cough up phlegm a lot. I lost my job because the doctor won’t release me to go to work.”
Wade Lovett’s voice was so affected by the chemicals that he “sounds like Mickey Mouse.”
The New York Post article also discusses the role Jami Cozza, a lifelong resident of the community, who has assumed a leadership role in the continuing contest with the government and Norfolk Southern for some semblance of justice.
Leading the charge to fight for the community is 46-year-old Jami Cozza, a lifelong East Palestinian who counts 47 close relatives here. Many of them are facing health issues from the chemical fire as well as the psychic toll of their town becoming, in the words of a scientist visiting the area Thursday, the new “Love Canal” — a reference to the Niagara Falls, NY, neighborhood that became a hotbed issue in 1978 because people were getting sick from living above a contaminated waste dump.
***
“Not only am I fighting for my family’s life, but I feel like I’m fighting for the whole town’s life. When I’m walking around hearing these stories, they’re not from people. They’re from my family. They’re from my friends that I’ve have grown up with,” she said. “People are desperate right now. We’re dying slowly. They’re poisoning us slowly.”
Jami Cozza, an East Palestine resident who’s emerged as one of the town’s leaders, at a town hall she organized with River Valley Organizing.
Scientific Evidence for Concern or “Performative” Search for “67% Justice”?
For the “doubting Thomases” viewing all this with skepticism, one does not have to look far to find statements by researchers, chemical engineers, and experts in other related fields such as those reported in another most unlikely source which never met a “deplorable” whose welfare it ever gave a scintilla of thought to, The Washington Post, as outlined in an article entitled “Toxic air pollutants in East Palestine could pose long-term risks, researchers say”. The article cites research done at Texas A&M along with views by professors from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carnegie Mellon University. Here are the basic findings of the Texas A&M analysis along with a screenshot of their report:
Three weeks after the toxic train derailment in Ohio, an independent analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data has found nine air pollutants at levels that, if they persist, could raise long-term health concerns in and around East Palestine.
The analysis by Texas A&M University researchers stands in contrast to statements by state and federal regulators that air near the crash site is completely safe, despite residents complaining about rashes, breathing problems and other health effects.
***
In its examination of EPA data, the Texas A&M researchers found elevated levels of chemicals known to trigger eye and lung irritation, headaches and other symptoms, as well as some that are known or suspected to cause cancer.
It would take months, if not years, of exposure to the pollutants for serious health effects, said Weihsueh Chiu, one of the researchers.
***
The Texas researchers said it was “good news” that levels of benzene and related chemicals were not elevated in the air sampling. But they said EPA measured acrolein, a hazardous substance found in smoke, at concentrations that could have long-term health effects, along with other chemicals at lower levels that in combination could also raise health concerns if they remained at these levels for months or years.
Other apparently eminent specialists in chemical safety have voiced concerns about the rosy picture being painted by the EPA. This is from the New Republic article:
“I am concerned that the area has been deemed safe so quickly without extensive data to show the risk has been reduced,” said Dr. Michael Koehler, member of the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Chemical Safety. “As long as safety concerns remain, it is hard to understand how they authorized residents to return.”
Though officials report conditions to be safe, an inordinate amount of suffering is taking place. Moreover, the cleanup after the derailment did not guarantee the soil would avoid contamination. A Norfolk Southern spokesperson conceded that “it’s hard to tell what was burned off and what went into the soil.”
In a letter to Norfolk Southern last week, the EPA noted “areas of contaminated soil and free liquids were observed and potentially covered and/or filled during reconstruction of the rail line including portions of the trench/burn pit that was used for the open burn off of vinyl chloride.” The agency noted other toxic chemicals including butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether are also continuing to be released into the air, soil, and water.
So why are people being told it’s safe to return before Norfolk Southern completes the necessary cleaning still left to be done? The controlled burning may have been the best option at the moment; vinyl chloride and other compounds are explosive, so it had to be dealt with carefully. But the cleanup doesn’t stop there, noted Delphine Farmer, chemistry professor at Colorado State University. The burning released numerous other compounds and pollutants, some of which can sneak into people’s homes without air monitors picking up on them in the specific moment they might be checking.
What Does the Future Hold for the People of East Palestine?
No one seems to know. And those few words sum up the reason that the residents of that town, while trying to get straight answers out of the government (President Reagan said it best: the most frightening words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”) and the wrongdoer which caused this nightmare, Norfolk Southern, look at the future in a well-justified dismal light. Here is Ms. Greathouse again:
For her part, Greathouse doesn’t feel confident about staying in East Palestine anymore. “As soon as we got in town the first time a train went through [my] chest got tight with anxiety,” she said. “My 4-year-old is scared to be home, and honestly the possible long term health repercussions are not something I’m willing to risk with our toddlers.” It’s a decision she does not take lightly; Greathouse loves her community.
“My 4-year-old goes to the local Head Start in East Palestine. Every single one of his teachers and the family advocate have been in constant contact with us checking on him and our family in general,” she said. “I honestly don’t know how we would be making it through this without their love and support. While the government hasn’t done much, if anything, to assist, and Norfolk Southern is making aid difficult to receive, our community and the Head Start program have pulled together and we will be forever grateful for that.”
Walter Kirn, well-known author of eight books, most notably Up In The Air, and incisive commentator on Substack, summed up the larger context in these moving words in “Smoke on the Water”:
As the days passed after the derailment and the immense explosions touched off to deal with it, outrage and worry over the disaster merged with other concerns to form a a cloud of dread and apprehension. As you’ve probably noticed, large industrial mishaps seem to have grown common lately. Ag facilities up in flames. Exploding plants and factories. Combined with the shortages of goods evident in stores across the land, and then combined with the harsh tattoo of war drums sounding louder and louder from our capital, a sense of uneasiness, even of mounting terror, is an understandable result. Those who find themselves at odds with the country’s political leadership might be expected to sound the loudest alarms — and so they have, perhaps – but to dismiss their fears as merely partisan is itself a partisan act.
***
Meanwhile, a town is poisoned, perhaps a region, and the toxins float ineluctably downstream, their ultimate effects unknown. They may dissipate harmlessly or they may not, but they’re not information, these particles. They’re molecules. They exist in the hard, embodied realm of chemistry, and so do we. The people.
Remember us?
The plain, albeit tragic, answer is that they don’t. And that is why Jami Cozza is absolutely correct when she leads her community to fight for themselves. It is now beyond question that no one else will, to the shame of those responsible for this tragedy which has been inflicted upon them and the government which should be rendering aid and comfort to these American citizens instead of a country 8,000 miles away.
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Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment): We need to evaluate a complicated situation with clear-headed rationality, unmoved by sentiment and emotion. You must know this. You’re a lawyer, right? Older than me, right? (And I’m no spring chicken.)
I have, of course, looked at your website, and I understand you are younger than me. As I am 881/2 it seems you are 30 years younger than me. Having dispensed with that irrelevancy, I will now address the question of whether I attempted to evaluate this situation with all of the qualifications you mention. To begin with, this is not a trial on the merits, with all the attendant Rules of Evidence applicable, but simply a preliminary look at what those folks whose lives– according to some of the expert reports readily available to you– have been impacted and who have every reason, as stated by no less than the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania, to be deeply concerned about the future of their lives and, much more importantly, the lives of their children and grandchildren, to be deathly concerned about what the future holds for them.
I do not know what kind of practice you engage in but if it involves any trial work at all, I have to assume you have called your share of expert witnesses to the stand and, like me, spent many hours with those witnesses getting them ready to testify. My post contained the screenshot of the basic findings of the experts at Texas A & M who evaluated the findings of the EPA. How can you possibly read that report, assuming you did, and then claim that I have looked at this problem with no rationality, unmoved by sentiment and emotion? Are you seriously claiming that the researchers at Texas A&M did not adequately perform their research? If so, on what possible basis? To refresh your recollection, here is what the Washington Post quoted the main researcher as saying:
But they said EPA measured acrolein, a hazardous substance found in smoke, at concentrations that could have long-term health effects, along with other chemicals at lower levels that in combination could also raise health concerns if they remained at these levels for months or years.
“Minor”? If those words were written about me or my family, I would think that if someone told me I had just experienced something “minor”, that might well be a fighting word, as there would not be a single thing “minor” about it as far as I would be concerned. How about you?
Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment): I really object strongly to this, Jim. It’s precisely the sort of nonsense that upholds all sorts of false narratives, including the Black Lives Matter and “Me Too” nonsense.
I do not take kindly to having my opinions referred to as nonsense. Period. Full stop.
I better stop commenting, because frankly, this type of thing may drive me away from my general support of Trumpism and working-class Americans. What we’re seeing here, I think, is a misleading attempt to play the “victim card.” This time, it’s on behalf of working-class whites, who I generally like. I still don’t like this tactic.
I would be embarrassed to make any of these statements; the first sentence indicates to me that your commitment to “Trumpism” is even thinner than that of your colleague of the Arizona Bar to the North, if that’s possible, and the second is, there is no other way to say it, really insulting to the people of this small community who have, by objective standards and scientific evidence, suffered real and actionable damages. Perhaps I should put it to you this way: if one of these plaintiffs came to you for your representation, would you send them away? On what basis? That you think they are “playing the ‘victim card'”? Seriously?
I am so pleased to learn that you “generally” like working-class whites, since they were a large component of my clientele and they also represent my Father and a number of members of my family. I understand that you “don’t like this tactic”, whatever that is, and I have very seriously not liked some of your “tactics” (statements) on Ricochet, but have never, until this moment, said so.
So, it would be appropriate to close my responses to your comments with one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite political commentators, Dan Bongino: You do you; I’ll do me.
And yet again, I get an @ mention and the Ricochet Software does not alert me. I wonder if it alerted anyone else?
I hope that gets fixed in the new version.
More on point, I tire of people at Ricochet, and not just Jerry, dismissing feelings. Worship of reason is the first sin, because it is part of the sin of pride. Saying that feelings don’t matter goes against human nature and God Himself. Every important decision we make takes feelings into account. Even the small ones we make, use feelings. The idea that all decisions should be based only on reason is the pathway to pretty dark things.
Barbara Kugler, Taylor Holzer, Amanda Greathouse: A Few of the Citizens Actually Damaged and Ignored in East Palestine, Ohio
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I have, of course, looked at your website, and I understand you are younger than me. As I am 881/2 it seems you are 30 years younger than me. Having dispensed with that irrelevancy, I will now address the question of whether I attempted to evaluate this situation with all of the qualifications you mention. To begin with, this is not a trial on the merits, with all the attendant Rules of Evidence applicable, but simply a preliminary look at what those folks whose lives– according to some of the expert reports readily available to you– have been impacted and who have every reason, as stated by no less than the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania, to be deeply concerned about the future of their lives and, much more importantly, the lives of their children and grandchildren, to be deathly concerned about what the future holds for them.
I do not know what kind of practice you engage in but if it involves any trial work at all, I have to assume you have called your share of expert witnesses to the stand and, like me, spent many hours with those witnesses getting them ready to testify. My post contained the screenshot of the basic findings of the experts at Texas A & M who evaluated the findings of the EPA. How can you possibly read that report, assuming you did, and then claim that I have looked at this problem with no rationality, unmoved by sentiment and emotion? Are you seriously claiming that the researchers at Texas A&M did not adequately perform their research? If so, on what possible basis? To refresh your recollection, here is what the Washington Post quoted the main researcher as saying:
“Minor”? If those words were written about me or my family, I would think that if someone told me I had just experienced something “minor”, that might well be a fighting word, as there would not be a single thing “minor” about it as far as I would be concerned. How about you?
I do not take kindly to having my opinions referred to as nonsense. Period. Full stop.
More below.
I would be embarrassed to make any of these statements; the first sentence indicates to me that your commitment to “Trumpism” is even thinner than that of your colleague of the Arizona Bar to the North, if that’s possible, and the second is, there is no other way to say it, really insulting to the people of this small community who have, by objective standards and scientific evidence, suffered real and actionable damages. Perhaps I should put it to you this way: if one of these plaintiffs came to you for your representation, would you send them away? On what basis? That you think they are “playing the ‘victim card'”? Seriously?
I am so pleased to learn that you “generally” like working-class whites, since they were a large component of my clientele and they also represent my Father and a number of members of my family. I understand that you “don’t like this tactic”, whatever that is, and I have very seriously not liked some of your “tactics” (statements) on Ricochet, but have never, until this moment, said so.
So, it would be appropriate to close my responses to your comments with one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite political commentators, Dan Bongino: You do you; I’ll do me.
Respectfully, Jim George
And yet again, I get an @ mention and the Ricochet Software does not alert me. I wonder if it alerted anyone else?
I hope that gets fixed in the new version.
More on point, I tire of people at Ricochet, and not just Jerry, dismissing feelings. Worship of reason is the first sin, because it is part of the sin of pride. Saying that feelings don’t matter goes against human nature and God Himself. Every important decision we make takes feelings into account. Even the small ones we make, use feelings. The idea that all decisions should be based only on reason is the pathway to pretty dark things.