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East Palestine resident Shelby Walker wipes her red and irritated eyes Thursday while standing in her backyard, which now includes a mangled Norfolk Southern train car sitting behind the trees.
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‘How long is this going to last?’: East Palestine residents fear for their health — and answers are hard to find

Lucy Schaly/Post-Gazette

‘How long is this going to last?’: East Palestine residents fear for their health — and answers are hard to find

With health concerns growing and many residents unable to afford a move, some feel forced to gamble on their family’s wellbeing

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Shelby Walker lives in what she now calls “Ground Zero.” 

Her three-story yellow house on East Taggart Street sits about 900 feet away from where a train derailed earlier this month, eventually sending toxic chemicals into the air and water and leaving this small village just over the Pennsylvania border in crisis. Ms. Walker wasn’t able to see the train tracks from her house until after the derailment, when workers bulldozed the trees out back. 

“It’s pretty much in my backyard,” she said. “I've got tankers set up against my property line that they're tearing apart. It's pretty bad out.”

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Now she looks outside and sees the tangled metal of Norfolk Southern tanker cars that flew off the tracks on Feb. 3. With residents racked by fear and anxiety over their health, and Ms. Walker, like others, unable to afford a move, she feels forced to gamble on her young grandchildren’s wellbeing — not knowing what the consequences might be. 

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“Maybe five years down the road, my grandson or my granddaughter end up with cancer,” said Ms. Walker, 48. “But we're not going to know that, and I don't want to take that chance.”

On Thursday, the putrid smell residents have complained about since the derailment grew more potent. Officials have tried to assure residents that the air and drinking water is safe. But Ms. Walker’s eyes became increasingly irritated and red that day, so she went to her doctor, who diagnosed her with an infection. 

Since returning home last weekend for the first time since the derailment, she said, her household of 11 has suffered from sore throats, headaches, nausea and coughing. Two of her grandchildren, ages three and one, also went to urgent care with infections.

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And now the family lives next to what has become a construction site.

“Sometimes we wake up in the middle of the night because the smell’s so bad,” Ms. Walker said. “We haven't slept hardly at all. They work out here all night long. My grandson, he’s one-and-a-half, he was crying at night, screaming and crying.”

Ms. Walker, like other residents, is frustrated by the health care her family has received. They aren’t getting adequate explanations for their symptoms, she said: “I don’t think they know what to test for really.”

Her house is one of hundreds that have been tested for air quality and cleared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But like many, the results haven’t given her peace of mind. 

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“People wouldn't be getting sick if it was OK,” she said. 

Officials have tried to assuage the concerns. During a Thursday news conference, EPA Administrator Michael Regan urged residents to “trust the government.” And early next week, the state plans to open a medical clinic in the village to evaluate those who are worried and evaluate their symptoms, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Friday. The clinic will include a team of experts in chemical exposures that is being deployed to eastern Ohio.

“These are very legitimate questions and residents deserve an answer,” Mr. DeWine said, while also emphasizing that testing inside and outside of homes in the village have no found no signs of toxins that were on the train.

“We're doing absolutely everything we can to assure residents to what the situation is,” he said. “I understand people have been traumatized. I understand skepticism.”

The Ohio Emergency Management Agency said on its website that some of the contaminants released into the environment have a “low odor threshold,” meaning they can be smelled even at levels much lower than what’s considered hazardous. While environmental officials said the contaminant amounts in the Ohio River were low enough that they did not pose a threat, cities in Ohio and West Virginia that get their drinking water from the river had been monitoring a slow-moving plume and a few temporarily switched to alternative water sources.

Water samples on Friday showed the plume is now completely gone, Mr. DeWine said.

For now, the Walkers’ backyard is littered with fragments from their old lives. The trampoline, bikes, toys and other items left outside — they’re all getting thrown out. She’s afraid to let the kids use them again, Ms. Walker said. 

Several days after the derailment, Norfolk Southern engineered a controlled release of the chemicals in five tanker cars, to avert a potential explosion that could have sent shrapnel flying up to a mile. Sometimes, Ms. Walker thinks about that alternative. 

“I don't know, maybe if it was blown up, it would have been better for us,” she said. “We wouldn't have had to come back here.”

It’s not just residents of East Palestine who fear the fallout. Therese Vigliotti has found solace in strangers — five people on a local Facebook group who, like her, live about 16 miles north in Poland, Ohio. Ms. Vigliotti said her mouth has been feeling “weird” ever since the toxic plume from the controlled release swept over the area. 

“My mouth went numb,” she said. “My tongue felt like I had a chemical burn. My tongue is still messed up.”

Ms. Vigliotti talked to a toxicologist, who told her that an air monitoring sensor on her street detected nothing of concern the night of the controlled release. Her symptoms might be because of smoke inhalation, the toxicologist said. 

“I don't think smoke inhalation causes you to have a tongue that feels like it was scalded for a week and a half,” she said. 

“I feel like they're treating us like we're crazy, and I know my body,” she added. “I know how I'm supposed to feel, and I know how I felt when I went outside that night.”

Back in East Palestine, Angela Jeffries joined hundreds of residents in seeking answers during a raucous community meeting Wednesday night. Norfolk Southern didn’t attend, citing a “growing physical threat” to its employees.

“Norfolk Southern decided not to show up because of concerns of their safety,” Ms. Jeffries said. “Meanwhile, we're all there with concerns about our safety and the safety of our families and our health. That was like a slap in the face.”

Her symptoms started with a tickle in the back of her throat. Later came more symptoms in her sinus, including headaches and a stuffy nose. Her two-year-old daughter and husband have a sore throat. 

She’s uncertain what the cause might be — whether stress, lack of sleep, chemical exposure or something else.

“We're trying to find out the truth, like what's going on?” Ms. Jeffries said. “It's hard to tell. The advice that we're hearing is, just document, keep a diary, write your symptoms down.”

The family already had medical bills to pay off, so going to the doctor hasn’t been an option. They also recently went off health insurance.

“We just don't have the money,” she said.

Ayla Antoniazzi, an East Palestine mother of two, has kept busy cleaning up her home since the evacuation order was lifted. She uses white vinegar to ensure she’s not bringing additional chemicals home.

After she brought her 2-year-old and 4-year-old daughters home, she said, they woke up with “blotchy, bumpy rashes” all over their faces and arms. Her older daughter complained that her teeth hurt and her stomach was upset. Her younger held her head and said her eyes hurt. And the normally energetic two-year-old was also behaving differently. 

“She was acting lethargic and was just laying down,” Ms. Antoniazzi said. “Didn’t want to play.”

They stayed with her parents about 13 miles west during the evacuation. Ms. Antoniazzi sent them back there once she saw their symptoms.

“They were back to themselves,” she said. “The rashes were gone. There was no complaining of headaches, stomach aches. My youngest was up and running around again.”

She also noticed rashes on her older daughter’s hands when she sent her back to preschool. Ms. Antoniazzi periodically stays home to clean and has experienced some symptoms herself, including headaches. 

“I'm trying to get the house clean and wipe down surfaces, and every time I'm there, it hits,” she said. “I get such bad headaches that Tylenol, Ibuprofen, nothing touches them.”

For now, Ms. Antoniazzi is just looking for some answers on her daughters’ health. 

“It's just waiting, hopefully getting definite answers at some point from somebody,” she said. “How long is this going to last?”

-The Associated Press contributed.

First Published: February 18, 2023, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: February 18, 2023, 12:26 p.m.

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