The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Jami Wallace:

I am Jami Wallace from East Palestine, Ohio. It was three years ago today on February 3rd, 2023, that a Norfolk Southern train derailed in my community carrying hazardous chemicals. It’s now been three years. We are still here. We still need help. Our health is failing. I have been diagnosed with multiple different long-term illnesses that all can be related to the chemicals.

Ashley McCollum:

My name’s Ashley McCollum. I was a former resident of East Palestine, Ohio. I’m currently in Beaver County right now. Since three years ago, a lot of things have been consistently the same. We’re still all struggling. We still all have needs that are unmet. We have so many people that are experiencing these issues and need help in their communities.

Evy Albright:

My name is Evelyn Albright. I’m 10 years old and I live in East Palestine, Ohio where the train derailment happened. The train derailment affected me. It gave me rashes and a really, really bad rash. And we lived in a hotel for four whole months. It was a lot, honestly. My dad got severe heart failure and he had to be in the hospital for Christmas. And I know a lot of people in my town have gotten a lot of other very bad things happening to them during the train derailment.

Chris Albright:

My name is Chris Albright. I’m a resident of East Palestine, Ohio. I live a half a mile from where the train derailed. I’m pissed. I’m pissed right now at the response from the country. I’m pissed right now at how many people have forgotten about what happened here. I’m pissed at the fact that everybody thinks we’re doing fine, that everybody thinks everything in East Palestine, Ohio is good. It’s not. We are still fighting the same battle we were fighting three years ago. It’s ridiculous. We have been through Democratic presidents. We’ve been through Republican presidents right now, and nobody is stepping up to help us. Nobody gives a shit about what happened to us in East Palestine.

Sharon:

My name’s Sharon. I live on the Pennsylvania side of the East Palestine trained enrollment disaster. I think everyone might be misunderstanding that people have already gotten aid. There are several, several lawsuits going on, but I imagine those are going to go on for decades like one of the lawyers told me. Yeah, people might be under the impression that we’ve already gotten help. We’ve already gotten our lawsuit money, which most people haven’t yet. Politicians, the government, they’ve all let us down. As far as they say they’re going to help. I mean, we have to beg them. Don’t get me wrong. We have to push and push and beg and beg for help. They’re not offering it easily. But then when they finally do say they’re going to help, it’s another health study, which we already have six health studies going on. We didn’t need another one.

We don’t want to be studied like guinea pigs. We want to be helped. My

Christina Siceloff:

Name is Christina Siceloff and I am from Darlington. And now it’s been three years since the derailment happened in East Palestine. And I really think that a lot of us in PA have been left out. There are still people from both Ohio and PA that are getting sicker. The doctors are still not sure on how to treat us. A lot of people don’t have a doctor to go to because they can’t afford to go to the doctors. The EPA is still not giving us answers. Norfolk Southern says that everything is cleaned up, but yet the EPA won’t say it is. Day-to-day life for us, we can go and we can walk out our door and worry about the soil that our kids play in. We can’t go fishing in the creek because what’s in the creek that can harm us. We can’t go forage for mushrooms out in the backyard anymore because we don’t know if they’re safe to eat.

We don’t know if the air is safe for us to breathe. And we don’t know if any cough that we get is a natural cough that everybody gets sick from or if it’s a new symptom of the derailment.

Edward Siceloff:

My name is Edward Siceloff. I’m seven years old. I was exposed to the train to rowing badly and the second day I think I had puffy cheeks because I was sick and I couldn’t stop licking my lips for some reason. We went up the neighbor’s driveway and we saw the smoke. My mom took pictures of it and I was scared to sleep in my bed by myself that night when the train enrollment happened. And I was four years old when it happened and I was in my bed with my mom. She was putting me to sleep. She was looking at Facebook on her phone. It popped up on her phone saying on Facebook, “Please do not go to East Palestine, Ohio. A trained enrollment has wrecked.” My mom used to take me to the creek when I was a kid, a little, little kid, and now they’re polluted.

And I know the words, kind of all the words, I know exohexol oculate, vinyl chloride and I forget chlorine too.

Christa Graves:

I’m Christa Graves. I’m a lifelong resident of the East Palestine area. My home is a little just outside the one mile zone. This time, three years ago, we didn’t know if we were supposed to evacuate. We weren’t super concerned. And here we find ourselves three years later, stuck in the same place minus one family member with another one pretty sick, who can’t take the medicines for the breathing condition that this caused without side effects that impair their life in another way. We see so many community members who are sick and more who want to pretend that it’s all over. And for the most part, the world’s moved on and we’re stuck in a vacuum of time. We’re stuck in the mud. We don’t know where to go next. We don’t know what … What proactive step can we take that we

Christina Siceloff:

Haven’t already done? It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you’re coming from. Nobody cared about us. Joe Biden, he wouldn’t sign a disaster declaration for us. He gave us health studies. When Trump’s administration took over, he gave us more health studies, but that’s it. JD Vance came here and said that in six months, if our needs still weren’t being met, that he would come back and make sure that they were being met. And now we’ve not heard anything from him. RFK Jr., Who’s now the health secretary, he sat at some of our kitchen tables, even a person who has cancer now and is dying, and he made promises to them, and he made promises to all of us, and they’ve not followed through on those promises. We don’t ever hear from them. Even now, it’s February 3rd of 2026, and we haven’t heard a word on the third year anniversary from them.

We’ve been so let down, and our trust is so broken. And for us, everything’s been taken from us.

Jami Wallace:

We are still being researched and need to research not only for ourselves, but for other communities that are impacted by chemicals. So you can give money to the University of California, San Diego, Galam Research Group, or you can give money to the chemically impacted communities coalition where we’re joining together all the communities across the United States that have been impacted by chemicals to fight together as one big community.

Ashley McCollum:

I work with a charity called OVDMA. It’s Ohio Valley Derailment Mutual Aid. They’ve helped people in town. They’ve helped them with rent, with medical bills, anything you can think of that struggling families in a disaster need help with.

Sharon:

I’m also with the OVDMA. That includes the whole Ohio Valley because this plume went over the whole entire Ohio Valley, not just East Palestine, Ohio. It went as far as I could tell all the way to Pittsburgh. So it went right over me. It went over a lot of us while we

Christa Graves:

Were asleep. And I hope and pray that this doesn’t happen to your community because we never dreamed it could happen to ours. And then when it did, we were sure the right things would be done. We were sure that as we found that we were sick, that the EPA would protect us, that FEMA would do their job, that the railroad would be held accountable, and we have found none of that to be true. And I thank you for taking the time to watch this and sticking with our story. And I can’t wait till I can get my head out for air and watch more of your stories and see more of what’s happening in the rest of the world and hopefully try to make an impact to repay for what everybody’s done trying to help us.

Chris Albright:

Anybody who is watching this, step up, talk about it, keep it relevant, bring it up to your state representatives, your congressmen, anybody, anybody who is going to listen, bring it up. Let them know that we are still not right. We’re still not whole. We’re still not healthy in East Palestine. Help us. Please help us. I’m so sick of the fight we’ve been battling. It’s exhausting on us. It’s very tiring. It’s very hurtful. So please, please, please step up. Help us. Keep us in your thoughts. Keep pushing for us. Keep doing anything you can to help us. Anything. I don’t care what it is. Send a text out that says, Hey, East Palestine is still screwed up. Do that to your friends. Anything helps us. Please help us. Please, for the love of God, help us. We need it. And there’s so many different communities around this country right now that I know need to help.

I understand everything that’s going on right now, but … Please step up. Please give us a hand. We need it. We really, really need it. Thank you.

Edward Siceloff:

When I grow up, I’m going to try to be the president and I’m going to stop all of this. I’m going to make everything free in stores and I’m going to lower the prices and make everything free.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And what are you going to do to companies like Norfolk Southern?

Edward Siceloff:

Yeah, Put them out of business.