Loading summary
Transcript82 lines
- [00:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on apple podcasts. It's 7:02am on November 30, 2012. One minute before sunrise. Gary Stevenson is just waking up when he feels his entire house shake. A scream pierces the air. It's his wife, Raelyn. Get down here for God's sake, she says. Gary has lived his whole life Here in Paulsboro, New Jersey, a tiny 2 square mile town near Philadelphia. It's a perfect location for him and his wife, across the street from his parents house, right on the waterfront of Mantua Creek, a little tributary of the Delaware river with a view of a rusty old railroad swing bridge. Gary happens to be Paulsboro's deputy fire chief, so he throws on some clothes, grabs his radio and runs downstairs. He looks out of the back window of his house and can hardly believe what he sees. Two massive freight cars are derailed on one side of the creek. Behind them are five tanker cars dangling from the bridge, some of them bobbing in the creek. It looks like what happen when a toddler gets a kid's train set for the first time. Gary is the first person on the scene. It's quiet. There's no fire, just a thick fog rolling off the creek. So thick, in fact, that he can't even see his hand in front of his face. Strange, he thinks. The fog is not usually so bad this time of year. Then, just as mysteriously as it arrived, the fog lifts. But by this point, Gary's throat is already scratchy. His eyes are red. The air tastes sweet. Gary notices one downed railroad tanker has a gash in it. He can make out a placard number which tells you what the car is carrying. It reads 1086. He radios it in. The dispatch responds. Vinyl Chloride Vinyl chloride is a chemical used to manufacture things like PVC pipe or the vinyl siding on suburban homes. It's transported as a liquid in cold storage tanks, but above 7 degrees Fahrenheit it becomes a gas when you breathe it in. It's a deadly carcinogen linked to brain, liver and lung cancer, and at this point, 24,000 gallons of vinyl chloride have spewed into the air behind Gary Stevenson's house. It's been an hour, and now there are other firefighters and cops on the scene. There's a lot of confusion about what to do. Eventually, someone makes the call. Evacuate the town. But it's too late. Within hours, the residents of Paulsboro will experience symptoms similar To Gary's headaches, rashes, trouble breathing. 700 residents are evacuated, but they won't know the full scale of the impact for years to come. Even so, the people of Paulsboro may be the lucky ones. A railroad worker would later tell Gary that 99 out of 100 times when this sort of thing happens, the train catches fire, which is scary when vinyl chloride is involved. This particular derailment was caused by malfunctioning locks on the century old swing bridge behind Gary's house. Federal investigators found that the rail company had been warned 23 times about the faulty bridge in the year prior to the accident, but did nothing to address the dangers. Later it issued this we regret this incident and its impact on those it affected. We've also redoubled our efforts to work with the first responders to address hazardous material response. The terrible train accident in Paulsboro, New Jersey could have been a moment to enact tougher regulations for trains carrying hazardous chemicals to prevent something like this from ever happening again. I'll let you guess how that turned out. From Wondry I'm Zach Goldbaum and this is Lawless Planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.
- [04:46]
Gary Stevenson
We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% prevent.
- [05:10]
Zach Goldbaum
As modern consumers, we all make trade offs. You want, I don't know, a discounted garment steamer first thing tomorrow? Sure, but an Amazon delivery driver may not have time for a bathroom break or a six pack of beer. Fine. But a plastic ring might end up around the neck of a sea turtle. But for each devil's bargain we willfully opt into, there are countless more that we can't opt out of. Where decisions that impact our health and our environment are left up to CEOs and lobbyists and regulators. Where we don't have a seat at the table. One of the most egregious examples is the railroad industry. On the one hand, freight trains are more eco friendly. A fleet of gas guzzling semi trucks. But on the other, every day, trains loaded with hazardous chemicals and oil shuttle through our cities, our towns, even our backyards. Some people call them bomb trains. Almost exactly a decade after Paulsboro, New Jersey, an eerily similar derailment would strike another small town. The same railroad company, the same toxic chemical, the same chaotic response. Only this time it would be orders of magnitude worse. Before it became synonymous with a calamity, East Palestine, Ohio was a bit of a a quaint American village in the Appalachian foothills Where nothing much happened and people liked it that way.
- [06:45]
Misty Allison
The big debate in town when we moved to East Palestine in 2019 was whether or not you could have chickens at your house if you lived within the village limits.
- [06:57]
Zach Goldbaum
Misty Allison moved to East Palestine right in the middle of the chicken wars. It's her husband's hometown and they wanted to be closer to his parents. So they bought a house on a tree lined street next to a family with kids the same age. As their young children, it was just a short walk to their local school.
- [07:14]
Misty Allison
I grew up in a big city and East Palestine is definitely not that. There's not even a hotel in town, for instance. There's a lot of very tight knit community members and it just felt like everybody looked out for one another, everybody knows everybody else. So I thought that was really charming.
- [07:35]
Zach Goldbaum
It was a far cry from where she was raised in Ohio's capital, Columbus. But there was one similarity.
- [07:41]
Misty Allison
I grew up on the train track in Columbus and so our house was literally the train track was in our backyard and, and the conversation that my parents would have with me about the trains was do not ever go on the train tracks.
- [07:58]
Zach Goldbaum
So Misty was aware of the dangers posed by a big locomotive barreling through town. But when the family relocated, she was also unfazed by the regular hum of trains passing countless times per day.
- [08:10]
Misty Allison
The closest train track to our house is like a half a mile away. You can't hear it, especially if they're blowing the horn really loud. But that was really it. We had never thought of anything else about the trains.
- [08:25]
Zach Goldbaum
Then came February 3, 2023. That afternoon, engineer Tony Fayson boards a train in Toledo, Ohio, and takes off toward Conway, Pennsylvania. He's an engineer from Norfolk Southern, one of the country's leading railroads and the parent company of the train that crashed in Paulsboro, New Jersey. It's his usual route, Toledo to Conway. But today, along with a conductor, there's a trainee on board. This train, like a lot of freight trains nowadays, is a beast. Three locomotives, 145 cars, 18,000 tons and 9,000ft long. That means there are just three people manning 1.7 miles of train. Tony prefers to trust his instincts when it comes to maneuvering the heavy train through the hills of northwestern Appalachia. So at some point he switches from auto to manual control. Tony spends a lot of the ride talking about the job and answering the trainees questions. It's a good trip for the new guy. He seems to be learning a lot. And there's a lot of railroad talk about what to do and what not to do. What Tony doesn't know is that as the train passes through Salem, Ohio, a security camera captures something glowing at the bottom of one of the cars. It's a wheel bearing and it's beginning to catch fire. It's 8:12pm and in about 40 minutes Tony and his crew will be passing through East Palestine.
- [09:55]
Misty Allison
We had basketball practice that night and it was a very cold day. It was super cold in East Palestine that day. We got home probably around 8pm and so it was a little later than normal for that bedtime hustle, if you will. I had just gotten Audrey to bed and we got a text message from my sister in law in our family group text message thread and she said a train derailed in town.
- [10:32]
Zach Goldbaum
Misty's husband Aaron walked down to the edge of the driveway to see if he could see anything. Meanwhile, Misty was putting their 7 year old son Blake to bed.
- [10:41]
Misty Allison
And I'll never forget Blake's next to me and I'm holding the phone and Aaron sent a picture from the bottom of our driveway and it was just a huge fireball. It looked like an atom bomb went off.
- [10:56]
Zach Goldbaum
Here's what we know. For engineer Tony Faison, it had been a smooth ride. Remember, the train is massive, nearly two miles long. So it's not surprising that he couldn't see that there was a major issue. A wheel bearing on the 23rd car was on fire. What was strange was that an alarm should have been triggered to notify him. But it didn't go off for over an hour, not until the train was pulling into East Palestine and by that point it was too late. The train had derailed in an accordion style pile up of 38 cars. Tony's conductor leaps outside to inspect the issue. It is frigid cold, hovering around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. About a third of the way back, he sees dozens of crumpled cars illuminated by a huge inferno. Next to Tony, the trainee is rifling through an emergency handbook. He finds what he's looking for. It says to stay 300ft away from the cars. So Tony calls for his conductor who rushes back on board. They get word from dispatch. Take the power to Conway. That means decouple the locomotives from the other cars and get out of there. So as fire trucks arrive on the scene, the first train car is cut and the engines chug along to their final destination, unwittingly taking with them the train's manifest, a detailed guide to every chemical in the derailed cars they were leaving behind. When East Palestine's Only professional firefighter Chief Keith Drabik is alerted about the derailment. He's five hours away, driving through Pennsylvania, about to enjoy a much needed vacation. But as soon as he gets the news, he turns his car around. His guys need him. Rick Gorby is acting fire Chief in his boss's absence. He's one of the first volunteer firefighters on the scene. He sees flames shooting 100ft into the air. Another firefighter would later say it looked like the doors of hell were open. More firefighters arrive, along with police officers and a special hazmat squad. Rick calls his chief, who's speeding back as fast as he can. Chief Drabik has one. What is on those cars? Rick tries to read the placards, but he can't make anything out. Everything is either on fire or burned beyond recognition. Just then, a representative from Norfolk Southern pulls in. Norfolk Southern is one of the biggest freight companies in the US and and runs almost 20,000 miles of track. So when Rick asks him what's on those tankers, he's expecting answers from an industry pro ready for any crisis. But the Norfolk Southern guy doesn't have a clue. If anyone had the manifest, they would know that three tank cars are on fire because they were carrying combustible liquids. But also that five other tank cars contain something much worse. 115,580 gallons of vinyl chloride. When Rick finally learns that information, he's standing next to another volunteer firefighter whose eyes go wide. The guy is a high school chemistry teacher and all he says is, we need to get out of here.
- [14:23]
Keith Drabik
Hello. I'm sorry to bother you. If you can evacuate, they want everybody out of here.
- [14:27]
Gary Stevenson
Oh, I gotta get all my cats.
- [14:29]
Keith Drabik
Yeah, because this thing's gonna blow. Just make it quick, please.
- [14:33]
Zach Goldbaum
Within an hour, Ohio Highway Patrol are going door to door evacuating all residents within a 1 mile radius. Their body cameras capture the interactions.
- [14:42]
Keith Drabik
Is he on fire? Oh, it's a little bad. They're worried it's gonna explode.
- [14:48]
Zach Goldbaum
For people outside of the evacuation zone like Misty Allison, information is scarce.
- [14:53]
Misty Allison
We were trying to make the decision at that time because technically our house is 1.02 mil from the derailment site. We were told if you are not within that 1 mile radius, stay home, shelter in place so that you can make room for all of the first responders that are coming to the area. And so I had bags packed and ready to go. But that night we did not evacuate.
- [15:22]
Zach Goldbaum
But everyone, including Misty's seven year old son Blake, is uneasy.
- [15:28]
Misty Allison
I was laying there And I was just trying to be calm for Blake because he was still awake. He could hear the sirens, and so it was a little harder for him to fall asleep. And so I feel like I was very much like a duck that's swimming in water, where it smooth on the surface, but then your little feet are going rapidly.
- [15:49]
Zach Goldbaum
The next day, Misty and her husband were still pretty conflicted about their decision to stay. But in the absence of an evacuation order, they try to resume their normal lives. Which for the Allison family means we.
- [16:01]
Misty Allison
Were at the monster truck show in Youngstown.
- [16:05]
Zach Goldbaum
But even as the monster truck Smashasaurus does donuts in the dirt, it's hard to put the derailment out of their minds.
- [16:12]
Misty Allison
The kids had a great time, but the parents were very distracted because that is when we started hearing rumblings about the contents of the cars and what actually derailed. So then we are driving home, and it was a very cold night. And I'll never forget it because my husband turned off the heat in the car and I was like, what are you doing? It's freezing. And he said, we shouldn't be breathing this in and we should probably think about evacuating.
- [16:56]
Zach Goldbaum
It's the afternoon of February 6, three days since the derailment. Fire Chief Keith Drabik is pacing the gym at East Palestine Elementary School, which has been transformed into the nerve center of the disaster response. Rows of folding table house specialists from the epa, CDC and fema. First responders in bright yellow vests huddle around TV screens deciphering heat maps. A helicopter lands on the school's soccer field, and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine steps off to join the response. Chief Drabik and Governor DeWine are abruptly called into an urgent meeting by representatives from Norfolk Southern. The railroad has their own command center in another room in the school, and when Chief Drabik walks in, he's met by Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw. Chief Drabik is told that the temperatures in the train cars are fluctuating. One carrying vinyl chloride is overheating and its pressure release valve is broken, a combination that has them worried about an explosion. When vinyl chloride heats up, it expands and becomes highly volatile. According to Norfolk Southern, some of the cars are cooling down, but others are getting hotter. And when you're talking about tens of thousands of gallons of flammable gas welded shut inside blistered, overturned steel tanks, that's a problem. With each degree of heat, you get closer to a chemical change that could turn a 47 ton railroad car into an airborne missile. Now Norfolk Southern's Director of hazardous materials tells Chief Drabik he has to make a call on whether to perform what's called a vent and burn. The idea is to intentionally release and burn off the chemicals to avoid an uncontrolled explosion. They're losing daylight. He has 13 minutes to decide. Venting and burning the cars could mitigate a larger catastrophe, but it would also release tens of thousands of gallons of vinyl chloride into the air, the same noxious chemicals that caused so much havoc in Paulsboro, New Jersey, a decade earlier. Chief Drabik feels blindsided. He asks Norfolk Southern officials to explain the process. Again, he's told that it's the only viable option. He steps outside of the room to collect his thoughts. It's like trying to defuse a time bomb with each degree of heat the clock ticks. So Chief Drabek returns to the room and gives the go ahead for the vent and burn. Workers in hazmat suits set explosive charges on each of the failed tanks to vent and then initiate the controlled burn. Chief Drabik sits in a bus outside of the school's command center and watches it all happen. The chemical fire is intense. It looks like a mushroom cloud. Thick black smoke fills the sky for hours and blankets much of the surrounding area. Then, just two days later, the residents of East Palestine are told that it's completely safe to come home. Jack, wake up. We have to leave.
- [20:15]
Misty Allison
Five more minutes. No more minutes.
- [20:21]
Zach Goldbaum
This is the trailer for the Netflix film White Noise. It tells the story of a train derailment in a small Ohio town that releases an unknown chemical into the air. Sound familiar? They're calling it the airborne toxic event. What's crazy is that it came out a year before the derailment in East Palestine. And even crazier is that when they shot the movie in Northeast Ohio, they used some of the residents as extras. Now, those people were living through the same event in real life. It all contributed to an eerie feeling that lingered in the days following the vent and burn. And when Misty Allison's family came back, she knew something was off.
- [21:05]
Misty Allison
It's a very interesting situation because it's something that you can't see with the naked eye. And so you come back home, and there wasn't a smell at our house. It didn't smell like smoke at all. Everything looked completely normal. But when I first came back that weekend, I had a rash on my body. So I was like, well, maybe I'm just stressed out. But then I started getting some headaches, some, you know, congestion that's going on runny nose.
- [21:38]
Zach Goldbaum
Misty wasn't alone. People all over town are experiencing nausea, headaches, sore throats, tingling skin, and they want answers.
- [21:53]
Mike DeWine
So I think we have some good news for the residents. And what we have tried to do throughout this is to make sure that the public knew exactly what we knew. And so that's what we're trying to do today.
- [22:08]
Zach Goldbaum
From the Command Center, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine holds a press conference trying to project calm. But in the midst of the conference, a reporter from News Nation is arrested. Stop resisting. He's pulled out of the elementary school gym and slammed to the ground. Governor DeWine doesn't even know it's happening. But it just adds fuel to the fire. Like, if they're arresting reporters, what are they trying to hide? Norfolk Southern is adding to suspicions of a cover up. Just days after the crash, they laid down new tracks on top of the contaminated soil and got trains running again with little regard for the environmental impacts. Think about that. This is the site of an active investigation, but for Norfolk Southern, it's just business as usual. On top of that, they tried to remove and destroy the railcars, critical evidence in the National Transportation Safety Board's early investigation. The EPA and Norfolk Southern insist things are fine, but social media is awash with videos depicting the opposite. Local waterways covered in a chemical sheen.
- [23:13]
Mike DeWine
Wow, look at all that. Look at it.
- [23:16]
Gary Stevenson
It's all in the bottom of the creek bed. There are literally hundreds of dead fish.
- [23:20]
Zach Goldbaum
I can't even begin to imagine the.
- [23:23]
Gary Stevenson
Trickle effect we're going to have on.
- [23:24]
Zach Goldbaum
The wildlife around here. All in waterways that run directly into the Ohio river, which provides drinking water for 5 million people.
- [23:33]
Mike DeWine
We're not getting any truth. They are not going to own up to what's going in there until they are forced to.
- [23:40]
Keith Drabik
I don't trust anybody's right now. None of us know I've lost £15 because I'm up every night worrying about my granddaughters.
- [23:46]
Zach Goldbaum
Are we really safe?
- [23:47]
Keith Drabik
Is our water safe?
- [23:48]
Zach Goldbaum
You destroyed our town. Why?
- [23:51]
Keith Drabik
They're not telling us stuff.
- [23:54]
Zach Goldbaum
Overnight, the quiet village of East Palestine is transformed into a media circus. Everyone from reporters to citizen journalists to activists all come to town. And amidst the confusion and conflicting information, it's hard to know who to believe and who to trust. That's when a self proclaimed savior with a spray tan swoops in, famous for telling people in the heartland, I alone can save you.
- [24:20]
Mike DeWine
We're gonna get the meals for the fire department.
- [24:22]
Zach Goldbaum
Okay?
- [24:23]
Mike DeWine
Hello everybody.
- [24:24]
Zach Goldbaum
On February 22, 2023, about two and a half weeks after the derailment Donald Trump arrives in East Palestine. He stops at his favorite fast food joint, McDonald's.
- [24:35]
Mike DeWine
So I know this menu better than you do. Okay, I probably know it better than anybody in here.
- [24:41]
Zach Goldbaum
It's a scene. He's buying burgers for the police department, for the fire department. He's handing out MAGA hats. It is peak Trump, everybody.
- [24:51]
Mike DeWine
Enjoy your meal.
- [24:54]
Zach Goldbaum
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is on a trip to Ukraine. The optics aren't great. And even though Trump doesn't do anything meaningful for the people of East Palestine, apart from buying them a few McDoubles, the visit seems to reinvigorate Trump's re election campaign. And frankly, he's not the only one politicizing the disaster. East Palestine is overwhelmingly white. That shouldn't be relevant, but as you're about to hear it very much is. The government is lying to you. They nuked a town with toxic chemicals and there is a massive cover up unlike anything I've ever seen. This is not hyperbole. It could very well be a domestic Chernobyl. But what if there's no anti white plot? No nukes? What if the Netflix movie was just an odd coincidence, not a dress rehearsal, as some people allegedly. Maybe the truth about what happened in East Palestine is much, much simpler than all of that. Much more mundane. And maybe that is what makes it so frightening. Remember the train derailment in Paulsboro, New Jersey, that happened 10 years before the train wreck in East Palestine? And afterwards, the Obama administration felt pressure to do something. They set out to increase safety standards for trains carrying hazardous materials like oil and combustible chemicals like vinyl chloride. But after lobbying from the industry, the new standards were neutered, and trains carrying vinyl chloride were not reclassified as high hazard flammable trains. But there was one major policy win. The final measure called for trains to be retrofitted with a new electronic brake system by 2023. That's because America's trains have been using a braking system that dates back to around the Civil War. You heard that right. We'd been transporting deadly chemicals with brake technology designed before rolls of toilet paper were invented. But now, by 2023, the brake problem will be solved, right? Wrong. Enter the first Trump administration. In the 2016 election cycle, rail lobbyists handed out more than $6 million to Republican campaigns. Then, after Trump won, his Department of Transportation rescinded the rule. That would have improved our outdated brake system. Here's the really sad thing. Even if the safety rule had been in effect, it would not have applied to the Norfolk Southern trade that derailed in East Palestine. That's because it was not categorized as a high hazard cargo train. And while Norfolk Southern was saving money on breaks, the company spent billions on stock buybacks, all while slashing their workforce. That workforce reduction has been industry wide, and it happened with the rise of something called precision scheduled railroading. That's a fancy way of saying fewer inspections, fewer workers, and longer trains. The train in East Palestine was over 1.7 miles long. And on an earnings call in 2021, a Norfolk Southern exec bragged, our push for efficiency led to record train weight and record train length in the quarter. Weird flex, but okay, I know that was a lot. So just to quickly recap, since the crash In Jersey in 2012, we got some new safety regulations. Then Norfolk Southern and other rail companies greased the skids and under the Trump administration, got rid of them. And in the years since, trains got bigger, staff got smaller, and through it all, we kept a brake system designed by people who wiped their asses with corn cobs. It's June 25, 2024, more than a year after the East Palestine derailment. Residents of East Palestine have gathered in the high school gym to hear the NTSB present the findings of their investigation. NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy starts the meeting talking directly to the people who are packed in the gym.
- [29:08]
Gary Stevenson
On behalf of the entire agency, I want to recognize the significant impact that this derailment has had on the community in East Palestine, Ohio. Unfortunately, some have sought to minimize the wide ranging impacts of this derailment, pointing to the fact that there were no fatalities or injuries. But the absence of a fatality or injury doesn't mean the presence of safety.
- [29:35]
Zach Goldbaum
She begins to disclose the findings of their report. First, that there was no real risk of an uncontrolled explosion. The chemical company that produced the vinyl chloride had confirmed this to Norfolk Southern reps, saying, quote, if a vent and burn is being considered, it should not be done. But no one had passed that information along to decision makers at the accident site, like fire chief Keith Drabik. But the most striking moment comes at the very end of a long day. Hammondy takes aim at Norfolk Southern, who was a party to the investigation.
- [30:12]
Gary Stevenson
Norfolk Southern's abuse of the party process was unprecedented and reprehensible.
- [30:19]
Zach Goldbaum
She says Norfolk Southern obstructed the investigation, withheld documents and submitted unauthorized evidence. They pressured the NTSB to defend them for pushing for venting and burning. Hambondy even says that she and her agency were threatened during a private meeting with Norfolk Southern in The end, the NTSB concludes that a series of failures by Norfolk Southern, from the faulty wheel bearing to failed hot bearing detectors to the vent and burn decision, all of it combined to cause the initial accident and the chaotic aftermath. And the new electronic brake system that Norfolk Southern lobbied against. It may not have prevented the accident, but it could have minimized the number of cars that derailed. Still, even now, Norfolk Southern defends their actions and refuses to admit wrongdoing. Sitting in the audience that day, Misty Allison watched as the NTSB called Norfolk Southern to account. But by this point, Misty was no longer just a passive observer in the crisis.
- [31:25]
Keith Drabik
All right. Joining us now is Misty Allison, an East Palestine, Ohio, mom who lives just over a mile from the derailment. Misty, good to see you. And thanks for, thanks for joining us. On the bottom line.
- [31:34]
Zach Goldbaum
She speaks at local roundtables with environmental officials. She gets involved with an advocacy group called Mom's Clean Air Force. And she meets some of the families who had gone through the same thing in Paulsboro, New Jersey, a decade earlier.
- [31:47]
Jennifer Homendy
It was just very sickening to hear from other moms about how nothing has really changed.
- [31:57]
Zach Goldbaum
What did those moms tell you about what they had experienced?
- [32:01]
Jennifer Homendy
It was very similar. So, you know, doctors not really knowing exactly what to test for, what to treat for, and then just talking about some of these long term health impacts that some of their children are having. This is what we experience. So you might experience some of these same things.
- [32:20]
Zach Goldbaum
These conversations trigger memories of her own childhood growing up near a glue factory in an industrial neighborhood in southwestern Columbus, Ohio.
- [32:30]
Misty Allison
At the time, I had never thought about it, but I lived in a more impoverished area in Columbus. My mom had cancer, but then all of her sisters had some type of cancer as well. I had told my primary care provider, you know, my mom was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma. My grandmother had lymphoma. And I'll never forget, he said to me, well, typically lymphoma has an environmental component.
- [32:59]
Zach Goldbaum
It's really hard to prove what causes a person's cancer. There are just so many contributing factors. But studies show that residents living near industrial facilities have an elevated risk of specific types of cancer. And that's especially true for people exposed to toxic chemicals. Less than two months after the East Palestine disaster, Misty's mom's battle with cancer came to an end.
- [33:24]
Misty Allison
She was such a fighter, and I'm her only child. And so I think that she fought so hard so I could be by her side like when she passed away. And so I'm grateful that I had that opportunity.
- [33:40]
Zach Goldbaum
Misty was invited to testify at a Senate committee hearing on March 22, 2023, about improving railway safety.
- [33:48]
Misty Allison
I was in the middle of writing my mom's eulogy, and then so I went right from writing my mom's eulogy to writing the Senate testimony, and then had my mom's funeral that Saturday, and then a couple of days later flew to Washington, D.C. to give that testimony.
- [34:07]
Zach Goldbaum
I want to begin today by expressing how deeply sorry I am for the impact this derailment has had on the residents of East Palestine. Among the other speakers at the hearing is Alan Shaw, the CEO of Norfolk Southern. I am determined to make this right. Senators grilled the CEO about Norfolk Southern's safety record and the decision to spend billions on stock buybacks. Then it's Misty's turn to speak.
- [34:38]
Jennifer Homendy
This preventable accident has put a scarlet letter on our town. People don't want to come here. Businesses are struggling. Our home values are plummeting. Even if we wanted to leave, we couldn't. Who would buy our homes? Alan Shaw has repeatedly said that Norfolk Southern will make it right. But who determines what is right here?
- [35:03]
Zach Goldbaum
NTSB President Jennifer Homendy also testified, and.
- [35:07]
Jennifer Homendy
She just point blank said, look, everything that we are talking about here, these are recommendations that the NTSB has been making for, for 20 years, and nothing has been done.
- [35:19]
Zach Goldbaum
And I'm sorry to say that more than two years later, that is still basically the case. After the derailment, then Senator J.D. vance of Ohio co sponsored the Railway safety act of 2023. But yet again, the rail industry pumped millions into Washington to stop it. And last December, the legislation died without a vote. Recently, the Trump administration announced that the National Institutes of Health would study the long term impacts of the derailment on the people of East Palestine, which is great, but on every other front, they're rolling back regulations and cutting environmental protections. And as for Norfolk Southern, a judge approved a settlement of $600 million to the residents of East Palestine. The settlement freed the company from future claims. And to this day, no one has been held criminally liable for the derailment. Misty's family decided not to take the settlement money or waive their right to sue if their health worsens.
- [36:20]
Misty Allison
I honestly felt like we were just casualties in this situation and that Norfolk Southern was putting profits over people. So it was absolutely infuriating and terrifying. East Palestine is not the first instance that a Norfolk Southern train or any other train has derailed in this nation and sadly is not going to be the last time.
- [36:45]
Zach Goldbaum
Before all this happened. East Palestine was kind of a typical American town. It still is, but it's also something else. A sacrifice zone, a place abandoned to industry in the name of profit. As we speak, over 12,000 towns and roughly 3 million people are in the path of one of these bomb trains. There's estimated to be millions of gallons of vinyl chloride traveling by rail at any given moment, not to mention petroleum and other hazardous chemicals. Since 2020, more than 4,000 trains have derailed along the country's vast rail network. Most of them don't turn into East Palestine, but all it takes is one look. I'm not advocating for the end of trains. And there's really no foolproof way to transport dangerous chemicals like vinyl chloride or petroleum. Pipelines pose their own risks and cost to the environment. It's like asking what's the safest way to twirl a gun, but surely there's room to recalibrate. And it reminds me of something Misty said in her Senate testimony on Capitol Hill.
- [37:56]
Jennifer Homendy
We must have strong businesses, but I urge all of you to support common sense safety regulations so this, this doesn't happen again. Together, we can make sure that East Palestine and the surrounding areas not only recover, but thrive, and that no other community experiences this tragedy. My mom always told me, either you find a way or you find an excuse.
- [38:40]
Zach Goldbaum
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wonder plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey next time on Lawless Planet, the tragic story of one man's fight to save the Amazon. A battle that is still raging today.
- [39:10]
Keith Drabik
I didn't even hear the shot when I arrived at his house. His wife came out screaming. Guma de Shachiku.
- [39:25]
Zach Goldbaum
We use a lot of sources when reporting these episodes, and for this week, we relied heavily on the NTSB's investigative reports. This episode of Lawless Planet was written, produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producers for wondery are Peter A.R. cooney and Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Pirie. Sound design by Kyle Randall. Music by Kenny Kusiak. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. Fact checking by Brian Pugnant. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie Aaron o', Flaherty, n' Jeri Eaton and Jenny Lauer Beckman for wondering. Okay, thanks for listening. See you next week.
- [40:12]
Misty Allison
By.