Not sure if anyone here is following this. It happened less than 50 miles from me. 
East Palestine, Ohio. Rumor is that the train crew saw a car with a seized bearing, and surveillance video from Salem, OH, 20 miles away, showed the train rolling with smoke coming from a wheel. The crew was told to continue, and sure enough the car derailed and caused a massive spill of Vinyl Chloride, the precursor to PVC. Norfolk Southern also apparently "lost the manifest" and didn't know what else had spilled, but now we know that the train also carried other carcinogenic chemicals, and that those chemicals spilled, too.
A week ago, they set the VC on fire in a controlled burn. When you burn VC, it bonds with water vapor. It releases phosgene gas (a chemical weapon). It's very, very bad. Fish are dying in the local creeks, which drain directly into the Ohio River. Water testing has shown the presence of high levels of the toxic chemicals spilled. That black cloud of death was blown right to Pittsburgh, not to mention the poor, stepped on folks who happened to live in East Palestine.
They're being told to go get healh checkups so that they have a "baseline health report," because they're going to have health affects years down the road. This is not just going away, like people are being told. If it gets into the groundwater (likely at this point) it's going to make that place uninhabitable...not to mention what affect it will have on the Ohio.
Excuse me, but I am so fucking sick over this. Years of deregulation, cost cutting and ignoring of safety measures has directly led to this. We just had a rail strike, with rail workers complaining of safety being undercut and warning us of a disaster...and our leaders (both sides, read that again) decided to quell their voice and allow the rail companies to continue as before.
Watching this be rather actively buried in the news cycle (hey look, a balloon!) is killing me. These are my people. It may be just some small hick town in some Rust Belt backwater to the rest of the world, but this is so close to home for me and those people are victims, as is our environment and this disaster is largely going unnoticed.
Just do me a favor, and don't shut up about this. I don't give a shit who you want to blame, who in our government you feel failed (they all have, in this case), what you think could have been done or should be done...I don't give a shit. I just want those people in East Palestine to be heard, because up until now no one cared...and by and large, no one cares now.
East Palestine, Ohio. Rumor is that the train crew saw a car with a seized bearing, and surveillance video from Salem, OH, 20 miles away, showed the train rolling with smoke coming from a wheel. The crew was told to continue, and sure enough the car derailed and caused a massive spill of Vinyl Chloride, the precursor to PVC. Norfolk Southern also apparently "lost the manifest" and didn't know what else had spilled, but now we know that the train also carried other carcinogenic chemicals, and that those chemicals spilled, too.
A week ago, they set the VC on fire in a controlled burn. When you burn VC, it bonds with water vapor. It releases phosgene gas (a chemical weapon). It's very, very bad. Fish are dying in the local creeks, which drain directly into the Ohio River. Water testing has shown the presence of high levels of the toxic chemicals spilled. That black cloud of death was blown right to Pittsburgh, not to mention the poor, stepped on folks who happened to live in East Palestine.
They're being told to go get healh checkups so that they have a "baseline health report," because they're going to have health affects years down the road. This is not just going away, like people are being told. If it gets into the groundwater (likely at this point) it's going to make that place uninhabitable...not to mention what affect it will have on the Ohio.
Excuse me, but I am so fucking sick over this. Years of deregulation, cost cutting and ignoring of safety measures has directly led to this. We just had a rail strike, with rail workers complaining of safety being undercut and warning us of a disaster...and our leaders (both sides, read that again) decided to quell their voice and allow the rail companies to continue as before.
Watching this be rather actively buried in the news cycle (hey look, a balloon!) is killing me. These are my people. It may be just some small hick town in some Rust Belt backwater to the rest of the world, but this is so close to home for me and those people are victims, as is our environment and this disaster is largely going unnoticed.
Just do me a favor, and don't shut up about this. I don't give a shit who you want to blame, who in our government you feel failed (they all have, in this case), what you think could have been done or should be done...I don't give a shit. I just want those people in East Palestine to be heard, because up until now no one cared...and by and large, no one cares now.
