We're still in the fairly immediate aftermath of the train derailment at
East Palestine.
And residents there would love to know what the hell is going on and
what is gonna happen to clean it up and to compensate the people living in the area
that have been affected by a number of chemicals that we know about and
others that we don't necessarily know about yet.
So, more than a week after the Norfolk Southern train derailed,
causing explosion that sent flames into the air that was then buttressed by
the intentional burning of remaining chemicals there,
there was a cloud of potentially toxic smoke that swept over the area.
People tell The Post that they have yet to see a full list of the chemicals that were
aboard the train when it lost its course.
Now, that list has increased over time.
So we already knew about vinyl chloride, apparently butyl acrylate, and
now is the part of the story where I'm gonna attempt to pronounce these things
that I am in no way trained to do so, but they are important.
So we do need to know about them.
So, I'm gonna say, ethylene glycol monobutyl ethel,
ethylhexyl acrylate and isobutylene.
Those are all potentially toxic things that apparently could be sweeping over
the area, and we don't yet know if that's the extent of the list.
Now, who would know, I'm gonna guess the company that was shipping them would know
exactly what was on that train.
It seems like it was take maybe 15 minutes to get the full manifest and
to release it.
But as with so many things, Norfolk Southern
which wants you to believe that it is an active participant in trying to
help people out with their little donation of like $50,000 or something.
I think it might even be $25,000 so far, is also playing their cards close to
the chest when it comes to these sorts of chemicals.
Which is leaving a lot of people in the area, and not just the immediate area,
to wonder what is going on to nature.
Dead fowl have been spotted in water ways,
residents returning to homes in a neighboring Pennsylvania town
were advised by state officials to open up their windows, turn on their fans, and
wipe down all surfaces with diluted bleach.
Which is a horror show that that far away, the very surfaces could be
contaminated by whatever it is that's flowing through the windows.
Some nights, one resident told The Post,
the air smells like an over chlorinated swimming pool and his eyes burn.
He says he can't move his family of five out of the home,
so he says he has no choice but to stay put and follow authorities instructions.
For a small town, we have to trust them, because what else do we have to do?
We have to trust that they are not lying to us, and maybe they're not.
But, if you've paid attention to history, maybe they very much are.
Maybe there's worse stuff in the air, maybe they don't know
exactly what's in the air, but I would be very worried if I was a human,
if I was an animal in that area, Francesca, very rough situation going on.
>> No, it's unthinkable and it's scary and it happens way too often.
And yes, it is time obviously to talk about the railroad company owners and
workers rights, and all of the ways that, when you bolster workers rights,
you're also protecting communities that these railways go through, right?
If there's no way to hold them accountable, everyone is just Mr.
Burns, trying to hide toxic materials in random small towns, and
that's exactly what's happening.
And yes, it's great we're covering it now, but
we have to keep following up on this in three months and six months,
in two years, in ten years, when we see the rates of cancer and whatnot.
But here's the thing, if you're gonna have unfettered capitalism throughout
the United States, and you love it, and you say, yeah, corporation
should have all the tax breaks, they should do whatever they want and all that.
Do you know, all that acrylic was going to fake nails in New Jersey?
So hey, it's an industry, it's a business, there's a lot of nails.
You know what I'm saying.
Like, this is sealant for decks, I don't know, think of it.
If you're gonna deprioritize human life over those toxic chemicals,
then at least have a goddamn contingency plan when things like this happen.
Meaning move people out of their homes,
put them up in a hotel where it is safe to stay, give them drinkable water.
Don't just tell them, hey,
open the windows and wipe your baby down with bleach.
Like, how ridiculous?
What kind of a country do we live in?
>> [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, look, jokes aside, it's devastating,
devastating right now for the things that are dying.
And then, I think a lot of people's thoughts immediately turned to,
what the hell are we gonna find out about this, in 1 year,, in 5 years in 15 years?
When we find out that some sort of cluster of a variety of cancers or liver failure,
God knows what, develop in this area.
And this appears to be just another case where these companies get to, whatever
extent we allow them, to offload the cost of doing business on to all of us.
If that railroad company's profits had suddenly shot up by 1,000%,
it's not like they'd be sending dividends to all the people along the train route or
anything like that.
And yet when it goes in the opposite direction, something devastating happens,
it's us that's gonna have to pay, almost certainly.
Maybe it's the localities, the states,
maybe the federal government gets involved.
Maybe they forced Norfolk Southern to get involved.
But does anyone think that they're going to be picking up the entirety of this?
Who thinks that they are definitely going to try to weasel out of as much of it as
possible?
>> Yeah, exactly.
Right, it's the privatizing of the profits and
socializing of anything that goes wrong.
Socializing of the disaster.
And this is where the libertarian ideology falls up effing part, which is,
they believe that the goodness of Mr.
Burns heart, he's gonna clean up the mess that he makes.
Because otherwise, then no one would move to East Palestine, right?
And then [SOUND], no man, no one's forcing these corporations to clean up.
Other than, we think they might, the EPA and bodies of government.
Those are the only people that can actually bring corporations in line.
It's the only regulating body, or the power of the market, because then nobody,
it'll be a bad, no, man, we're gonna forget about this tomorrow.
>> I mean, that's entirely possible.
We're gonna hopefully stick onto here,
we're gonna see what happens in terms of national media and all that.
And we're going to remind people that there is a lot that could have already
been done, there's a lot that can be done in the future, in terms of regulations,
on what sort of chemicals can actually be transported.
What sort of braking system you have,
those are things that the government could have been more involved in but didn't, and
I'm sure that there was nothing corrupt whatsoever about it.
>> Look, Chinese spy baloon, if you're watching,
just give us some hints about how we can improve our rail system.
You do it when you crush it over there on the mainland, you know what I'm saying?
What's up?
>> By the way, I'm glad that you're you're joking about the balloon or whatever.
Remember Marjorine Green e freaking out, there could be a biotoxin on it, man,
there was a biotoxin on that train and now it's in the air.
Again, could we, I understand that it's fun to engage in hypothetical
fearmongering, but let's do some fearmongering grounded in reality.
>> [LAUGH] >> How about that?
[MUSIC]