I've posted on Hackernews before mentioning that I grew up in East Palestine and my entire immediate and most of my extended family either live in the town itself or within 20 miles.
It's been surreal to see this event unplay in the media.
Some things I haven't seen talked about:
1. How desperately poor most of the population in that area is.
My fear is that if the crash has long terms effects people will never get justice.
These are people who can't afford to go to a doctor regularly. They can't afford to miss work. They can't afford to sue a railroad and they'll very likely take a small payment to waive all liability because any amount of money right now is better than whatever they might theoretically get in the future.
And for the most part no one there would tell you they're poor or disadvantaged. I don't mean to imply that they are downtrodden or helpless. I certainly didn't think that of myself or anyone else growing up there.
It is only with the perspective of having left and having traveled the world and having risen through the economic ladder that I have the ability to look back and see how disadvantaged they will be against a large corporation.
Barring legislation and government intervention I cannot imagine they will have even a shot in hell at getting a fair evaluation and fair deal.
2. Train wrecks happened in the area somewhat frequently
Growing up I remember at last 3 or 4 train wrecks bad enough that people had to be put up in hotels.
I don't know if that's a lot of a little for an area in a ~10 year span but it feels like a lot.
I also don't know if train wrecks are tracked and reported anywhere other than local paper archives but I would be very interested to see the internal data and memos the railroad has related to derailments.
If anyone is aware of such a resource please let me know.
The data on the site is fascinating, and can be downloaded as CSV, XLS, etc. (I live about 100m from a rail corridor, and though I love trains, I do worry occasionally about accidents).
An idea I've had for a while now is to put together a site like GoFundMe, specifically to crowdsource funding for people who couldn't otherwise afford legal representation. This is absolutely a good use case for such a project.
People really underestimate how much 2 or 3 community members who don't have to worry about working or making rent and focus solely on this issue can get done
If we could have something like a community strike fund that could be payed back into when/if their case is won, I'd happily donate while I have a stable job.
Who knows, maybe some day I'll be in some affected community that could make use of such a fund
Thanks to my job as a software engineer I felt like I was in the position to help people financially but the dozens of people I've asked at this point have all told me the same thing:
1. Their immediate needs are taken care of.
The ones who got evacuated were put up in hotels at first and have tons of support from local organizations. The ones who were more than 1 mile away generally are staying with friends until they feel like it's okay to return home.
2. They want life to return to normal.
This has been a major disruption in their daily routines. They want it resolved so they can get back to living their lives.
3. They're anxious and terrified about the health implications.
Ignoring the actual smoke cloud when they did the burn: the smell of the burn went for miles. It's hard to believe someone telling everything is safe when you home still reeks of chemical smell.
When the burn happens lots of people experienced runny noses, sore throats, and other minor symptoms. Was it a result of the chemicals? Was it stress? Was it all in their head? We just don't know.
There's a ton of dubious information flowing around social media scaring them. They don't know what to believe.
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The main thing that will help people is to feel like their situation is being taken seriously.
Things like a congressional hearing to establish answers to what happened and how it can be rectified. The federal government stepping in and committing to long term testing of the area. The railroad being forced to provide medical screening for at least the next several years.
Someone in a position of authority stepping up and saying they're committed to making things right instead of trying to minimize the situation or use it as a talking point.
Those are things no individual can do by themselves but if I had a suggestion I guess it would just be to reach out to your congressperson and tell them that you care about this getting fixed and never happening again.
> experienced runny noses, sore throats, and other minor symptoms. Was it a result of the chemicals? Was it stress? Was it all in their head? We just don't know.
>My fear is that if the crash has long terms effects people will never get justice.
I think we all know corporates nearly always win if history is anything to go by! Even judges get lent on so cant be considered independent and free of influence.
If I was in your family and friends shoes over there, if I couldnt take a 4-6 week out of town vacation, I'd be increasing my Omega-3's intake to may be as much as 1g a day to increase my neutrophil size, keeping to a minimum Omega-6's as it already causes enough trouble in the western diet, cutting out all sugar from the diet except starch, to increase my neutrophil phagocytic capacity, and be taking some B12 to help my neutrophils remain normal with todays polluted world in general.
In other words, plenty of fish and potato from out of town.
Thats not a nice situation over there, but you are lucky it even got on the news, some things dont even make it onto the news in some countries.
It's been surreal to see this event unplay in the media.
Some things I haven't seen talked about:
1. How desperately poor most of the population in that area is.
My fear is that if the crash has long terms effects people will never get justice.
These are people who can't afford to go to a doctor regularly. They can't afford to miss work. They can't afford to sue a railroad and they'll very likely take a small payment to waive all liability because any amount of money right now is better than whatever they might theoretically get in the future.
And for the most part no one there would tell you they're poor or disadvantaged. I don't mean to imply that they are downtrodden or helpless. I certainly didn't think that of myself or anyone else growing up there.
It is only with the perspective of having left and having traveled the world and having risen through the economic ladder that I have the ability to look back and see how disadvantaged they will be against a large corporation.
Barring legislation and government intervention I cannot imagine they will have even a shot in hell at getting a fair evaluation and fair deal.
2. Train wrecks happened in the area somewhat frequently
Growing up I remember at last 3 or 4 train wrecks bad enough that people had to be put up in hotels.
I don't know if that's a lot of a little for an area in a ~10 year span but it feels like a lot.
I also don't know if train wrecks are tracked and reported anywhere other than local paper archives but I would be very interested to see the internal data and memos the railroad has related to derailments.
If anyone is aware of such a resource please let me know.