America's Chernobyl: East Palestine, Ohio Jan 3, 2023

 

On the evening of February 3, 2023 a Norfork Southern train was passing through the town of East Palestine, Ohio. The locomotive was pulling 150 cars stretching almost two miles behind it. Suddenly the train's emergency brakes activated causing at least 50 of those train cars to jump the tracks. Residents ,just finishing dinner were starting to get ready for bed were startled by a huge explosion and fire that lit up the countryside and turned the sky black and impenetrable to sight.

The response by first responders was quick with over 70 fire, police and medical crews dispatched to the emergency. Officials identified chemicals stored in some of those containers as being were highly toxic and issued a 1 mile mandatory evacuation zone. Norfolk Southern personnell later advised that 4 of the train cars contained hydrogen chloride, a chemical that is highly toxic to human beings and the surrounding enviornment. These cars remained intact. As the incident was progressing a relief valve on one of the cars containing this highly toxic chemical malfunctioned. Officials immediately decided to breach the cars containing this the vinyl chloride with small directed explosives that would  allow the chemical to pour into a ditch where it would burn off and thus decrease the chances of a large explosion. This decision resulted in  a plume of very toxic fumes with the thought it would rise high into the air and atmosphere and would dissipate ( I will detail in the next post why this was probably the worst of options that officials could have come up with).

Meanwhile, what could be the worst train disaster to occur in this country in over 100 years has received almost no coverage by the media except some passing references in local newspapers. People in New York, Pennsylvania, and as far north as Maine and even Ontario have been reporting strange smells, skin and eye irritation, difficulty breathing and mostly no one is aware of what happened in Ohio and are not making any connection with what they are experiencing and the disaster. There has been more or less a blackout of coverage on what some are saying maybe the most toxic release in America since Three Mile Island.

Next: The flawed response