A fire continued to burn Saturday in Northeastern Ohio, after the derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals forced officials to order more than 1,500 residents to evacuate their homes.
“The area is still very dangerous,” East Palestine Fire Chief Keith A. Drabick said at a news conference Saturday afternoon.
The derailment of the Norfolk Southern train around 9 p.m. Friday caused an explosion that sent flames high into the air and a dense cloud of smoke across the landscape. The fire first spanned the length of the derailed cars, National Transportation Safety Board member Michael Graham said at an evening news briefing, and was still burning on a smaller scale by 5 p.m. Saturday.
The immediate area was blanketed by a chemical odor and chemicals were detected flowing into streams, local and federal officials said. They said no dangerous emissions had been detected and the village’s drinking water was safe.
Meanwhile, evacuated residents wondered when they’d be able to go home and questions swirled about what chemicals could be flowing into the air and water.
“We’re still trying to get the full picture of what happened, the chemicals included,” said David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an advocacy group in Pennsylvania, where counties just over the border from East Palestine were monitoring the situation. “There are certainly concerns about air pollution... Certainly, there’s concern about water contamination in rivers and streams and potential drinking water sources as you have runoff.”
Four of the rail cars were carrying vinyl chloride, and at least one was emitting the chemical via a safety release device, Graham said.
“[Vinyl chloride] is one of the chemicals that’s in there, but there’s also other hazardous materials in there. So right now they’re all posing a danger to us. We’re treating them all equally,” said NTSB investigator-in-charge Ruben Payan.
The train was heading from Illinois to Conway, Pa., when it derailed near the Pennsylvania border. The track is a thoroughfare for trains carrying “a lot of different product,” Drabick said.
No injuries were reported, he said at the Saturday news conference. East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 homes had been evacuated; others in the vicinity were told to shelter in place.
Velez went outside and saw first the glow from the fire, then “a giant mountain of smoke,” he told The Washington Post. He and his son drove to the end of the street, where they saw the fire raging with high flames and billows of smoke.
“When I put my window down, the heat from the fire smacked me in the face. It was completely surreal,” he said in a Facebook message to The Post. “I couldn’t believe what I was actually seeing.”
As Velez turned his truck around, one of the derailed cars appeared to explode, he said. He and his son saw and heard the explosion and its flash, and their truck shook, Velez said.
A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern said the company had workers on the scene working with first responders and government agencies. The company set up a drop-in assistance center.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which Graham said was monitoring air quality, did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Aside from vinyl chloride, neither Norfolk Southern nor the NTSB said what substances the train was carrying – and which might be on fire. A board member for the NTSB, which is investigating the incident, said the agency had a list of chemicals that may have been on board but had not verified it.
When the train derailed, the sound echoed over the surrounding neighborhoods. Nate Velez, 31, who said he lives two streets over from the train tracks, thought it was a thunderstorm; his brother-in-law thought the train had hit something.
