Resident Speaks Out Years After East Palestine Train Derailment (Ep.69)

Summary

Nightly Scroll with Hayley: Resident Speaks Out Years After East Palestine Train Derailment (Ep.69) Summary

Introduction: Spotlight on Overlooked Stories In Episode 69 of Nightly Scroll with Hayley, host Hayley Caronia delves into the prolonged aftermath of the East Palestine train derailment that occurred on February 3, 2023. Emphasizing the often fleeting nature of news cycles, Hayley underscores the importance of giving sustained attention to the human and environmental tolls of such disasters.

"The news cycle moves so quickly, we lose sight of the humanity behind the stories that are shared." [00:00]

Background: The East Palestine Train Derailment The episode revisits the tragic derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, which spilled toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethyl hexyl acrylate, and ethylene glycol, into the environment. In an attempt to prevent an explosion, Norfolk Southern conducted a controlled burn of the affected tank cars. This action, while intended as a safety measure, resulted in the release of noxious fumes that impacted air and water quality in the surrounding regions.

Personal Testimony: Christina Sisloff's Experience Central to the episode is the heartfelt account of Christina Sisloff, a resident living just 5.9 miles from the derailment site on the Pennsylvania side. Christina shares her initial discovery of the derailment through social media and her growing concerns about the potential dangers posed by the spilled chemicals.

"I saw that a train had derailed in East Palestine and that it could involve one of the gas stations... we were concerned about that." [04:31]

Health Impacts: Lingering Symptoms and Medical Negligence Christina details the onset of various health issues following the incident, including respiratory problems, migraines, and other unexplained medical conditions. Despite experiencing severe symptoms, she highlights a troubling lack of effective medical response and testing.

"Every day, I started getting sick for about two weeks... but I didn't attribute it to the burn until I was sick for about two weeks." [09:03]

She further recounts her interactions with medical professionals who were initially baffled by her symptoms and reluctant to conduct specific tests for the chemicals involved.

"We were told not to test for certain chemicals related to the derailment." [19:38]

Environmental Devastation: Contaminated Waterways and Wildlife The episode sheds light on the severe environmental repercussions, including the contamination of creeks and rivers, leading to a massive fish kill of 43,000 aquatic animals. Independent testing revealed high levels of oil-related compounds, contradicting official assurances that the environment was safe.

"We found a lot of oil-related compounds... there was a huge fish kill." [22:39]

Government and Corporate Response: Accountability Failures Hayley critiques the inadequate response from both the government and Norfolk Southern. Christina expresses profound distrust towards governmental agencies, revealing that FEMA and the EPA failed to communicate effectively with residents and even instructed officials to avoid direct interactions with the affected community.

"We were told to only talk to the local government and the stakeholders." [37:05]

Additionally, Christina highlights the dubious effectiveness of Norfolk Southern’s assistance programs, noting that many residents struggle to receive fair compensation or support for relocation.

"Norfolk Southern needs to pay for it. Not the federal government and our tax dollars." [43:59]

Community Struggle: Ongoing Health Battles and Relocation Challenges Despite the significant health challenges, Christina observes that many residents remain trapped in the affected areas due to financial constraints and inadequate support systems. She recounts personal and community efforts to seek medical help, including unorthodox methods like heavy metal detoxes, which often result in further health complications.

"We're trying anything to make ourselves feel better and make ourselves better because we don't want to suffer anymore." [35:31]

Call to Action: Seeking Justice and Comprehensive Support Christina urges local representatives and higher authorities to conduct thorough investigations and provide tangible support to the affected communities. She advocates for long-term health plans funded by Norfolk Southern and calls for genuine governmental intervention rather than superficial measures.

"They need to help us and also go up to Trump and get in his ear about how much help Trump came here in the very beginning and brought us water." [47:15]

Conclusion: Persisting Struggles and the Need for Continued Advocacy Hayley closes the episode by reaffirming the importance of spotlighting ongoing disasters that receive short-lived media attention. She encourages listeners to support affected communities by raising awareness, contacting local leaders, and sharing their own experiences.

"These are deeply important stories. We have to bring them to top of mind for people because they've forgotten." [50:29]

Notable Quotes:

• Hayley Caronia: "The news cycle moves so quickly, we lose sight of the humanity behind the stories that are shared." [00:00]
• Christina Sisloff: "We were told to only talk to the local government and the stakeholders." [37:05]
• Christina Sisloff: "Norfolk Southern needs to pay for it. Not the federal government and our tax dollars." [43:59]
• Christina Sisloff: "They need to help us and also go up to Trump and get in his ear about how much help Trump came here in the very beginning and brought us water." [47:15]

Final Thoughts: This episode of Nightly Scroll not only highlights the enduring plight of the East Palestine community but also serves as a broader commentary on governmental neglect and corporate responsibility in the wake of environmental disasters. Christina Sisloff's poignant narrative underscores the urgent need for sustained advocacy and comprehensive support for affected residents.

Transcript

[Haley]

Hello everyone. Welcome to this very special edition of Nightly Scroll. Happy Friday everyone. I want to remind everyone that you can watch this show live Only on Rumble. Rumble.com Haley is where you can watch Nightly Scroll Monday through Friday, 6pm Eastern time. That's where you can scroll with my homies in the chat. If you want to watch later on, you can do that only on Rumble. If you want to listen. Wherever you get your podcast, you can listen. Just search Nightly scroll with Haley. Leave a five star review. Say something nice about me. Ring the bell so that you never miss a show. And this is a show that you are not going to want to miss. One of the very things that I love about the news industry is also one of my least favorite, and that's that the news cycle moves very fast. It keeps life interesting for me. You know, there's always something to talk about, there's always something going on. Very rarely a slow news day. But because the news cycle moves so quickly, we lose sight of the humanity behind the stories that are shared. A quick update here and there, 15 minutes of fame, then poof. These breaking news stories that once dominated headlines are replaced by the next thing. It's very easy to get swept up in what's viral, what's trending, what's hot. But what happens to those characters in those stories that are told and then seemingly forgotten? So often in this country, tragedies strike. Small towns, brutal crimes, natural disasters. Everyone sends thoughts and prayers, social media statements are posted, flowers are sent, promises are made. Then the dust settles. And the real human stories need to be told. But the moose cycle moves on without them. So I want to make a conscious effort on this show to not forget about those stories, to not get caught up in what everyone's talking about and cover the stories that nobody's talking about or people aren't talking about enough. On February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. I'm sure everyone remembers this tragic Just a quarter mile west of the Ohio Pennsylvania state line. That train was carrying toxic chemicals including vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethyl, hexyl acrylate, ethylene glycol, monobutyl 38 train cars spilled those toxic chemicals into the air, into the groundwater and other waterways that feed into the Ohio River. Norfolk Southern decided to conduct a controlled burn of the 5 vinyl chloride tank cars to prevent an explosion. That's what they said. Days later, Authorities evacuated the 2 mile radius around the derailment, but ultimately they said the area was safe to Live in. Residents took to social media to share their experiences like this one. Watch videos depicting this rainbow sheen over nearby waterways. Even strange cloud formations. Most disturbing of all, stories of rashes, respiratory illnesses and other medical phenomena, ones that popped up only after the incident years later. We know now that 16 states surrounding that derailment site in East Palestine had some traces of these noxious chemicals more than two years later. Whistleblowers have since come forward, slamming the government's inaction and gross negligence. Government accountability groups exposing documentation that proves our government didn't want residents treated for their ailments. And they certainly wanted to cover up the possibility that East Palestine, Ohio, could very well become a cancer cluster. Now residents have more questions than answers. Christina Sisloff, she lives on the Pennsylvania side of the disaster zone, has been begging the government for help to no avail. And she joins me on this episode of Nightly Scroll. Christina, thank you so much for joining me tonight. You have to tell me you live on the Pennsylvania side of where the derailment happened. How far away from the site do you live?

[Christina Sisloff]

I live 5.9 miles away.

[Haley]

Okay, so that's very close to all of this. This literally hits very close to home. Let's go back to the day that the train derailed. How did you find out? Did you hear something, see something? What happened?

[Christina Sisloff]

I actually had just started to put my son to bed and I went on to Facebook and I saw that a, it was from like a community group that a train had derailed in East Palestine and that it could involve one of the gas stations. And there's three gas stations that are near the train tracks. And so, you know, from where I live, you're like, well, what if one of these gas stations blow up?

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

We're concerned about that. We didn't know anything about what chemicals were on the train. So it wasn't until later that night that happened at about nine o' clock, but later on that night, it was about midnight when I was continuing to read about it on the social media pages, when they said that they were going to evacuate firefighters. And I used to be in the fire department, so I knew, I was like, there's something else going on.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

Because firefighters don't get evacuated unless it's imminent danger to them.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Haley]

And if it's imminent danger for them, what does that mean for everybody else? So.

[Christina Sisloff]

Right.

[Haley]

What were your initial thoughts? I mean, when you saw that, that firemen were being evacuated, I mean, did you think to yourself, I need to get out of here. I need to get my My. My child out of here.

[Christina Sisloff]

No, I just wondered what was going on and kept looking for information. It like even into the next day. I think it was about 4 o' clock in the morning that I finally went to sleep and I was like, well, you know, if anything happens then it's gonna happen while I'm asleep.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

But so it wasn't until like the next day I went up to town. I live outside of town, pretty much like five miles away from any town. And so it wasn't until the next day. Whenever I like you went outside, it was nice out and so it looked like nothing was wrong. And so I continued to think that nothing was wrong. And then Sunday, the incident happened on Friday night, but Sunday I started to hear that people were more people were being evacuated. And now we've learned over time that some were being told that there were. There was vinyl chloride on the train. I didn't bout it until Monday morning just hours before the vent and burn happened.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Haley]

So what was the local news saying? Or the local government or even the federal government? What was the initial response like? Because it seems like you were just left in the dark.

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah, where I live we don't have cable, so we didn't really have local news. But you know, you keep up on social media with it a little bit. And there wasn't really anything being said about east Palestine yet. The local government, you didn't hear anything from them until people were being evacuated. And then the text alerts, I started getting text alerts for an evacuation for East Palestine.

[Haley]

And when was that?

[Christina Sisloff]

That was Monday morning.

[Haley]

So the entire weekend had gone by. These noxious chemicals have been released into the air. I mean days had gone by before the government evacuated you and where I.

[Christina Sisloff]

Live, we were never evacuated.

[Haley]

And you were less than six miles from the derailment and you were never.

[Christina Sisloff]

Evacuated or told to stay indoors.

[Haley]

Oh my goodness. So what, I mean, I'm sure you hear vinyl chloride or some of these other chemicals that I listed in the beginning. People don't know what this means. I mean, have you looked into what these chemicals are and what the impact on the human body? What it can be?

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah, I, that whenever everything first started, I never even heard of vinyl chloride.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

I was not really into science or anything since I was growing up, so I didn't really know a lot about chemicals except for the basic chemicals.

[Haley]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

There was, there's a loud bar so vital chloride we had never heard of. I mentioned it to my dad when this all happened and he was like, oh, that's bad, but I didn't realize how bad.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

Butyl acrylate and ethyl hexoacrylate I never heard of. They never mentioned it. Whenever they were evacuating people, they only mentioned vinyl chloride. And so once the vent and burn happened, people, there was nobody in town unless you chose to stay. There was nobody allowed to be in town. There was nobody allowed to leave town after that started. Oh, my goodness. They had the National Guard closing the roads. They had the police closing roads, fired up anybody that they could get, really. And they closed every road that you could get in or out of town. The town of East Palestine. And then once people. Once the evacuation was lifted, when people went home, they were like, what is that smell? What are these smells? And they started getting sick. Not everybody got sick, but a large part of the population started to get sick. About an hour after the vent and burn happened, I started to get sick.

[Haley]

Okay, so tell me what you were feeling first, and then we can get into some of your friend stories, because I know you told me that everyone in your community has a story.

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah. So mine. When the vent and burn happened, I just thought that I was getting a cold or Covid.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Haley]

Something. You were like, under lockdown again.

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah. And what. Since we weren't told to stay indoors or to evacuate or anything, I went outside with. He was. My son was 4 years old. Then we went outside, we walked up the hill to see what we could see. And you could see this dark cloud coming towards us slowly. And that was the cloud from the plume. And it started to get dark like it was nighttime. So we didn't really know if the cloud was directly above us, except I went outside at about 11 and you couldn't see the moon or the stars. And then at midnight, I went out again, and you still couldn't see them. And then two o' clock in the morning, I went out and you could see the moon and the stars. And that's around the time frame that the EPA and other officials had said that that's when the wind direction changed so that the plume cloud wouldn't have been over me anymore. But so about an hour after the burn happened, I started to feel like my throat was burning my nose. I started getting a migraine, and I never get migraines before this. And at about midnight, I started coughing. And so I just thought I was getting sick. I didn't attribute it to the burn until I was sick for about two weeks.

[Unnamed Guest]

Wow.

[Christina Sisloff]

Every day. And then other people started saying, oh, we've got this symptom and that symptom. We're smelling these things. And so you're like, wait, so I'm not the only one that's sick? Like, usually with the flu or something like that, you start to hear about it slowly, like, oh, like the flu is slowly coming through our community. But this was, like, overnight, everybody got sick.

[Haley]

Interesting. So did your son, because he was very young at the time, did he show any symptoms too?

[Christina Sisloff]

He actually, the night the derailment happened, before they even blew up the cars, he started to get coughing and a fever. And then the next day he was better. And so I didn't think, even for months after, I didn't think anything of it. And then we started to hear about other people getting sick before they blew up the cars.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

And so he did start getting sick on that Friday, but then after that, he didn't really get sick until they started pulling up the tracks to clean up thing. And it was. My dad also lives with us, and he didn't get sick until then either.

[Haley]

Wow. So what do you think was happening then? They were pulling up the tracks. And is this where more of the toxic chemicals were just in the groundwater? I mean, what. What do you attribute that to?

[Christina Sisloff]

They had pulled up the tracks because, like, when they blew everything up, I guess the. The vinyl chloride and whatever was in the train cars that had breached during the derailment, it had poured right into the soil. So they had to remove all the soil and dig it up. They did one side, and then, like, there's two tracks. One goes from PA to Ohio, and the other one goes the opposite direction. And so they did one side of the tracks, and they totally pulled that side up at one time. And all kinds of people were saying that they had symptoms. They could smell these smell, like a sweet smell or something, like bleach. I always say that it kind of relates to, like, a overly chlorinated swimming pool.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Christina Sisloff]

And go ahead.

[Haley]

No, you go ahead. Sorry.

[Christina Sisloff]

So then the second set of tracks that they did, they did it in smaller sections so that people wouldn't have those symptoms.

[Haley]

So they knew that people were having symptoms from all the things that they were doing. And I want to get into the symptoms first. Then we can kind of get into where Norfolk Southern went wrong and the government went wrong and everything else went to hell in a handbasket. But when your neighbors, when they were experiencing and yourself, when you're experiencing this nose irritation, this throat irritation, these headaches, these migraine headaches, Other reports I've read People reported having, you know, coughing fits, wheezing, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, like almost like a contact dermatitis from something in the air, like your skin having this reaction, feeling very weak, feeling very tired. What were doctors saying? When everyone in this area is having the same symptoms and they're, and they're going. Did the. Who started to put this all together?

[Christina Sisloff]

Well, the doctors initially that I had gone to, I first went to, they had clinics set up, kind of like a field clinic you would see like on a battlefield or something I would attribute it to. But they had set up these little clinics and they were saying the first time I went in, I listed all my symptoms. Some of the ones you just mentioned as well, you know, they came on over time. And when I went in, they initially they looked in my ear and they said, oh, you have an ear infection. And then they look at the rest of my body. And then the second time I went to the clinic, the lady, she looked over everything that she did, like a whole physical. And she had said, we don't really know what to tell you right now because we're not sure what's going on, so you should see your primary care physician. And then I went to an urgent care and they said that I had an upper respiratory infection. And that was the thing that a lot of people in the communities around here were being diagnosed with. They gave me an inhaler because I was having problems breathing. I've never had an inhaler before.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

Except, you know, maybe for like a week. But this was go. I, I used one for most of the time of all of eight months.

[Haley]

Wow.

[Christina Sisloff]

So I used that and then I went to my regular doctor and they said, we don't really know what to test for. So we're just going to click everything in our computer for blood and urine test to get an idea of what's going on. And then we're gonna. They gave me a diagnosis of exposure to toxins that were non occupational.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

And that was a month. Yeah. A month after the derailment happened, did.

[Haley]

They think to test people for the chemicals that were released?

[Christina Sisloff]

I don't think so. I don't know. You know, what we have seen in the news lately was that they were told not to.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

We were told back in 2023 that there had been a memo put out by the CDC to our doctors not to test us for chemicals that were related to the derailment. And so they didn't do any of that testing. I had finally, I think it was In July or August, I had gone to the local, a local chiropractor and he started to order testing for the. I can't remember what it's called. It's like whenever your body breaks down a chemical, what it turns into.

[Unnamed Guest]

Okay.

[Christina Sisloff]

He had started to order a test for the vinyl chloride.

[Haley]

Okay.

[Christina Sisloff]

Component of that. And there were a lot of people that started to test high for that chemical in their bodies. Mine was fortunately neg or non detect, I think it was. Which doesn't mean that it's not there.

[Haley]

Right. And so, you know, you take this test and are any of these symptoms persisting? I mean, it's been more than two years now since the derailment. Has anything new popped up since?

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah, we're starting to see more cancers. There's still people who are having migraines all the time. People who still smell the smells. I don't.

[Unnamed Guest]

Wow.

[Christina Sisloff]

I really smell them all that much. But I spent a lot of time in the creeks afterwards and so I think that, you know, over time your body gets used to a smell.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

So unless it's really strong, I don't smell it.

[Haley]

And when you're, when you're in the creek, because I've seen videos you post on social media. You're in the creek, you're digging up the, the soil underneath this water in the creek and it just lifts up this. It looks like a. There's an oil spill. Essentially.

[Christina Sisloff]

We had. I'd done some testing my. On my own with a group out of Pittsburgh that's a nonprofit, Free Rivers Waterkeeper, that they wanted to come down and help us out because we were being told that everything was fine, everything was within limits. And then we had another independent tester who was coming in and saying not everything was fine. And so it's like, well, who do you believe? We don't know. So I'm going to believe myself. And what I see. Oh, I see the video that's here.

[Haley]

Is just, you know, just one of the videos that has gone viral where you can see this rainbow sheen on top of the water there. It's. It's indicative of what's underneath.

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah. The testing that we had done found a lot of oil related compounds. We found out later that there was a lot of oil that spilled and they said that it could be from the petroleum lube oil that was on the train.

[Haley]

Wow.

[Christina Sisloff]

How many thousands of gallons it was that was on there. But it. I assume since we're seeing all this in the creek that it had to have been a lot and it went directly into the water along with a lot of other chemicals that were in there. There was a huge fish kill. There was 43,000 fish and other amphibians that died. Yeah.

[Haley]

And it begs the question, if 43,000 fish and other animals have died, what is that doing to humans? You know, animals are much smaller. Maybe their bodies can't withstand this, this amount of chemicals, the exposure to these chemicals. But what is happening to human beings in East Palestine and in the surrounding area? Are you all just slowly dying? And not to be morbid, but if we're seeing what's happening to all these fish and other animals and other beings, what, what is, what is happening?

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah. When I went into the creeks, when we were in the creek, we could feel like a lot of the time, for a long time we wore respirators and we would still get sick. So we would have like dizziness, oddly uncontrolled, laughing. I don't know why, and I still don't understand why. Like, is there something in there that would make you laugh hysterically, like a laughing gas?

[Haley]

Kind of. Yeah.

[Christina Sisloff]

Then the taste, like there was a metallic taste. That was another thing. After the, the vent and burn happened, a lot of people had this metallic taste in their mouth. You taste that a lot and smells. Those of us who had been in the creeks, we all ended up getting tremors. And I think maybe one or two of us, I didn't have this, but some of us ended up with seizures and some rashes, migraines. The breathing, like hard time breathing. And.

[Haley]

This is shock. I mean, this is shocking to know what has happened. The toll that has been taken on the human body of all of these, just all of these American citizens who have been exposed to this against their will. The government was telling you the entire time, no big deal, when it was a big deal. And you know, now we're more than two years out from this. And the National Transportation Safety Board found that this vent and burn was actually not necessary. Norfolk Southern, the, the rail company, they were pushing for the vent and burn because they claimed that the temperatures in the cars were increasing. They thought that maybe they could explode, which I can understand certainly wouldn't have been good. But now they're finding out because the epa, the on scene coordinator there, didn't understand how this specialized plane works. They have this specialized plane that can go in and it has advanced sensors that can see what the temperature was at. But the on site EPA coordinator didn't understand that. So then they didn't use the plane. I mean, we're figuring out now that the government had a lot to do with this going south.

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah, the. I was just talking to people about the plane earlier. I had. I had the question of why they couldn't fly the plane because the EPA had said at some point that they couldn't fly because of icing conditions. And I don't know if they were taking off out of Pittsburgh airport or if they were taking off at a local airport to go do the testing, but I had gone to school to be a pilot at one point, and we flew Cessna planes. It might not have been the same kind of plane as the one that was flying, but we didn't have icing, like the de Icer stuff. And we flew in the similar conditions as what was happening at that time as students. So why couldn't the plane have flown from the same airport with a professional pilot?

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Haley]

With the government.

[Christina Sisloff]

Right. And the other thing that was brought up in an article was that they turned off the sensors over the creeks. Why would you turn the sensors off over the creeks if you knew that that's where a lot of chemicals had been going and you needed to know what was in there.

[Haley]

You could test. Yeah, you could test. You could also tell residents, hey, don't go in this area. Or, you know, the frustrating part as well, that they didn't evacuate so many people. And you're clearly. You were in this disaster zone. You felt these symptoms. A lot of people have felt these symptoms. You know, the government, they evacuated a small amount of people, but people just can't up and leave. I mean, people don't have the means to leave their families, their friends, their jobs, sell their house. I mean, are people in the area feeling like, I don't want to live here anymore for my health, but they feel stuck?

[Christina Sisloff]

Oh, yeah. There's people with the class action settlement that was done who were looking forward to that money to be able to move. I don't know. Unless you're able to sell your house as well as have that money.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

It's hard to find a home in another area for that. You were like you were living in.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

For the price that homes are in East Palestine, and I'm just across the state line, and there's a huge difference in how much the properties cost. For me, the program that Norfolk Southern had set up for, if you would sell your home and it didn't sell for as much as it was worth before the derailment, then they would pay the extra to you. But did that happen? I think that there are some people who signed up for the program but their home still stood sold for the same. Oh, so I'm not really. I don't know of anybody who was able to get paid from them. But that program ends at the end of my road, so I'm not eligible for it. Even if I did want, like, or the other thing that people were having a problem with with is if I'm sick in my home, why would I sell it to another family to get sick in my home?

[Haley]

Right, of course. I mean, who would buy this? It begs the question. I mean, people who want to sell their houses. The only thing that I can think of is that the government or some sort of, you know, BlackRock, Vanguard, one of these massive companies, would come in and buy it up and do something with it. But to your point, I mean, what are they going to do with it? It's kind of. It's toxic.

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah.

[Haley]

And to that point, I want to get into this because there's been a whistleblower that came out to the Government Accountability Institute that said that they have emails now that prove that essentially the previous administration knew that there was a potential for a cancer cluster and they have been covering it up. They didn't want, you know, the cdc, like you said earlier, they didn't want people tested for certain things. They didn't want their ailments treated. Now they're saying that emails with FEMA and other government agencies claim that these correspondence between these government agencies, they knew that these chemicals could cause cancer. They didn't want residents to know. Do you feel betrayed by the government?

[Christina Sisloff]

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's. We've, you know, we've talked to people around here, have talked about it. Some of us feel like, you know, you kind of expect a corporation to betray you, but your government is supposed to be there to represent you, to stand up for you, to be a voice for you. And then they turn around and abandon you. And so you really do feel betrayed. And actually there was a. There's a local meeting tonight for, you know, just township stuff, but they're trying to redo some ordinances. And for me, what's the point in going to a meeting like that when you don't listen to us anyway?

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

You don't represent us.

[Unnamed Guest]

No.

[Haley]

And, you know, Reagan had that famous quote, you know, the scariest words in the English language are, we're from the government and we're here to help. And it's so true, because the government, like you said, I mean, we. The expectation is that the government cares about us. And these people that we elect are our public servants and they're. They're supposed to work for us and they don't work for us. And it seems like they're trying to sweep these things under the rug because it would look bad for them politically. And when it comes to cancer and people's health, I mean, do you know anyone personally who's been diagnosed with cancer? Yeah, since this derailment?

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah, I had one gentleman. He has a rare form of male breast cancer. It went after he had it treated, he went through treatment already. It's come back and it's more aggressive and it's in other places in his body now. And we're not really sure how long he has left to live. His family is trying everything and we're trying to find everything, anything that could save him. And the government had told us, the CDC told us when they came in and they said to us, we all know that you've been exposed, the exposures happened. We don't know how to get vinyl chloride out of your body, but we know how to treat the angiosarcoma is one of the liver cancers that you can get from vinyl chloride. We know how to treat the cancers later. Then why can't you treat his cancer? And I don't act. I don't know because there's not enough known about. This is the thing that the doctors tell us and the government tells us we don't know enough about multiple chemical exposure. But I had. Had pre cancer cells removed from my cervix after the derailment happened. And that doesn't run in my family. And I don't know if it was from the derailment and I don't know if it was because nobody knows.

[Haley]

Have you looked into. Because I feel like when something like this happens and you have this distrust in the government, you have this distrust in the medical industry because they've done you so wrong. A lot of people look to homeopathic alternatives. Have you ever looked into, or are people in your area looking into heavy metal detoxes or trying to detox metals from their. From their body?

[Christina Sisloff]

Yeah, we've tried. I know a lot of people who've tried. Broccoli sprouts were supposed to be something to help the people that are, you know, having cancer. Some of them are driving, Trying ivermectin. Yeah, some people basically they're trying, trying everything that they can. We just had, what's it called, niacin given out to a bunch of us and it was A high dose and you're supposed to start at a lower dosage. But they had tried niacin to flush the stuff out of them and people panicked. Once they had the niacin flush, they call it, where like your whole body feels hot. And then they rush to the hospital because they're like, oh my God, something's going wrong. But it's like we're trying anything to make ourselves feel better and make ourselves better because we don't want to suffer anymore. Yeah.

[Haley]

You know, at the time then President Biden signed an executive order basically saying that whatever the residents of East Palestine needs, they're getting, the government will provide. FEMA was supposed to keep tabs on the environment. Do they tell you what's going on? And if they are keeping you updated, do you trust what they're telling you?

[Christina Sisloff]

When FEMA came here, when the, the FEMA administrator, I forget what he was called, but he was supposed to come in, he was supposed to talk to the locals. And so a lot of us messaged him, like emailed phone calls. We tried everything. I went to the EPA and actually asked them if we could, could talk to them. And now we find in these emails that he was told not to talk to the locals. We were called the vocal locals and to only talk to the local government and the stakeholders, they called them. And so we weren't able to talk to FEMA at all when they were here. They were supposed to say what our unmet needs were. And in this, this list of the FOIA emails, we found too that the, there was a consulting firm that was hired by East Palestine Village to find out what our unmet needs were. And from the wording, it sounds like they were paid for to, to do their assessment by Norfolk Southern.

[Haley]

You know, Norfolk Southern, the, the company who is in charge of this train that derailed, you know, they, back in 2023, the year that the derailment happened. The company reported 163 derailments just that year. And the company has committed more than a million dollars to, they say to help the community since the derailment. They, they want to protect the drinking water, they want to support local businesses and schools. They're upgrading a park, apparently. Have you seen any of these improvements be made? Have you reaped any of these benefits?

[Christina Sisloff]

They had put in. The village had put in a carbon filter on their water supply that I know of. There hasn't been done, it hasn't been anything done for private wells because a lot of people around here have private wells. There is a 25 million dollar part going in. And initially they were behind and it came up at a village meeting as to why were they behind and who's watching the work being done. And there was supposed, supposedly nobody watching the workers, like no oversight. So they, they had used a lot of what I call it, excuses. Well, it was too rainy, it was too hot to build this park. And so they got behind. And then there was a large amount of money that I think it was some million dollars that they got behind on, where they said that, well, this is going to cost you this many millions of dollars more. Because this money was set aside for the plans, drawing up the plans on how to do the park. And then they're paying contractors to do the work in the park. And some of the work that could have been done in the park could have been done by the local community, like planning.

[Haley]

But I mean, after everything that you've been through, a park, you know, brought to you by Norfolk Southern probably isn't what you need. You need support in other ways. You need help medically, you need support from the government, you need stipends, you need. You know, I know that vice president Vance visited on the two year anniversary. You've been very vocal on social media. You've been showing up to protests. What do you need from this current administration? The people who are in power now, local leaders, local lawmakers. Is there anyone sounding the alarm is what you need, getting the attention it requires?

[Christina Sisloff]

Well, Michael Ry, I think that's his first name. He's a local representative, I believe in Colombiana county, which is where east Palestine is. And he had said now that these FEMA emails came out that he wants an investigation done into east Palestine. And other than that, you know, I still try to talk to our local representatives or our state representatives rather, and nobody really does anything. They will listen to you. But a lot of the times it's meet with our aides. We just were supposed to talk with somebody and a congressman and they had said, well, you know, for housing stuff, here's the phone number for the housing programs that are already set up. A lot of people don't even qualify for that stuff because they're over the income limits but they can't afford to move. And then so now what I think we need, there are people who do need to be relocated. There are people who just like, even based on mental health, they can't live, they can't stay here. Yeah, they don't feel safe. And every day, you know, they hear that train go through or Some of them live right over the creeks. They can't live in their homes and feel safe.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

Medically, people are still getting sick. I think that it would do everybody better if they could move if they chose to move. I know there's people that are going to want to stay and to me that's fine. It's your decision.

[Haley]

Do you want to move?

[Christina Sisloff]

To me, I would like to be able to move, but I don't see that as an option for where I live. Pretty much all the help is for east Palestine because they're so close.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

A lot of Pennsylvania has been left out of this altogether and that's where the plume went. But and a lot, some of the people I know that have the problems with cancers and medical problems too, they, they're in Pennsylvania, but they don't want to help one mile. Why are they going to help us? And medically we need some kind of like long term health plan that's not just like to monitor our health, but if something happens, they need to. Norfolk Southern needs to pay for it. Not the federal government and our tax dollars.

[Unnamed Guest]

Right.

[Christina Sisloff]

But Norfolk Southern does. And I guess at this point, because you know, they know and they've not told us, the federal government on their own, not using tax dollars, should be paying for some of the medical care too. They've kept us here.

[Haley]

Yeah. You know, it's very frustrating. And when you, when you think about all natural disasters that happen in this country, I'm reminded of the, the fires in Lahaina, in Hawaii, and just entire areas were decimated. People can't go to their, there's no home to go to. Their homes were just gone. And we're seeing a similar thing in the Pacific Palisades in California. These wildfires, I mean, people, their, their entire lives are gone in an instant. And it just seems like our government, I mean, they gave 700 ahead or a household in Hawaii. I mean, $700 is fine and that's all well and good, but $700 isn't enough to rebuild your life. And it just seems like we move on from these stories so quickly, which is what I was talking about in the beginning of the show where we, we, it dominates headlines for a while. We see the fires in, in Hawaii. We see them in California. We see the floods that took place in East Tennessee and in western North Carolina and the Asheville area. We've seen just roads decimated. They have to be rebuilt. There are all these stories that no one can stop talking about for maybe a week or two. Then they're just gone. And the people who live in those areas are not gone. Like, you are still living in this reality, and you can't escape. And it just seems like the government, they'll throw a few hundred dollars here and there, and that's not enough to fix the problem. So what, I mean, you talk about what you need in terms of medical care, in terms of maybe help to evacuate. I want to sound the alarm on this because I feel like we have a platform here. And if you could say anything to anyone, whether it's Vivek Ramaswamy who's running for governor, or the vice president of the United States or the president of the United States, what would be your call to action to them right now?

[Christina Sisloff]

Well, we've talked to a lot of them, and so they are very aware of what's going on here. I know JD Vance is very aware. He used to talk to a lot of us here. His office would whenever he was in Ohio, and he was informed of what was going on. Even this FEMA stuff for the last two years. About once a week he was told what was going on. And when he came here in February of this year, he said that in six months, if Norfolk Southern wasn't meeting our unmet needs, then he would be back and we would talk about what was going on. He needs to come here and he needs to talk to the people that he was talking to behind doors for the last two years and help us and also go up to Trump and get in his ear about how much help Trump came here in the very beginning and brought us water. And we were all very grateful for that because we didn't know if we could drink the water.

[Haley]

Of course. Yeah.

[Christina Sisloff]

And that was when he wasn't president. So, you know, they like to go and point fingers at the Biden administration who already did us wrong. They need to. They need to help us.

[Haley]

Yeah.

[Christina Sisloff]

And now at this point, also, we're not the only community that has needed help. There's a community to also put notice to is Conyers, Georgia, where they had a big chemical fire and those people had the same symptoms as we do, and they need help. They're still sick. And instead of worrying about things that you're not going to change people's minds on and sign executive orders for that, aren't going to really do much, do something that matters to the people and help us.

[Haley]

Well, I want your call to action to be heard. I, I thank you so much for sharing your story because like I said, these are stories that are so deeply important. We have to bring them to top of mind for people because they've forgotten. And certainly you being on the Pennsylvania side of it, I mean, everyone talks about Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, and no one's really talking about the other people who are impacted. And then the, the 16 states that have found these chemicals tested in their area, I mean, they've, this is bigger than just East Palace, Ohio. This is, you know, for people watching this, this might be in your state. And, and to your point about Georgia, I mean, these derailments happen. They, these accidents happen, natural disasters happen. We need to see our government and everyone who's in office now take action. And I, and I do hope that they do that. And I hope you find relief from your symptoms. And God bless you.

[Christina Sisloff]

Thank you.

[Haley]

Wow, a powerful story there from Christina. I know that she is not alone. There are so many people in her area who are feeling these symptoms and they are also feeling that hopelessness. So I hope that this interview at least brings this story to the, the attention that it deserves and it's getting the attention that it deserves and hopefully they can get the help that they so desperately need. Thank you so much for watching this interview. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a comment below if you liked it. Any more questions? Or maybe if you want to bring this to your senator or your local leaders, if you can get and bring more attention to this, especially I want to hear from you if you've experienced something like this, if you're from the area or if you're in Georgia or in one of these other 16 states where these chemicals have been found. I mean, I want to hear from you, too. Very interesting, very important story. Again, thank you so much for joining. Happy Friday. I will see you right back here on Monday.