It’s been three years since a Norfolk Southern “bomb train” carrying toxic chemicals derailed in the small town of East Palestine, OH, on the night of Feb. 3, 2023. Three days later, Norfolk Southern pressured local authorities to make the disastrous and completely unnecessary decision to empty five giant carloads of vinyl chloride into a ditch and set the contents on fire. The “controlled burn” of vinyl chloride released a massive black chemical plume into the air and exposed residents in East Palestine and the surrounding areas to deadly toxins in one of the worst industrial disasters in US history. Three years later, residents in East Palestine and the surrounding area are still suffering the toxic fallout. 

While Norfolk Southern, opportunistic politicians, sensationalist media outlets, and most of the public have moved on and forgotten about the mass poisoning of these residents, we at TRNN have not forgotten them, and we won’t give up on them. I’ve been interviewing and filming reports with residents in and around East Palestine for the past three years, including for our Izzy-Award-winning documentary Trainwreck in ‘Trump Country’: Partisan politics hasn’t helped East Palestine, OH. To commemorate the three-year anniversary, I have compiled here all of my original reporting for TRNN on the Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine. 

Please I beg you, don’t forget about the people affected by this disaster. Listen to their testimonies, share their stories everywhere you can, keep fighting to hold their poisoners accountable. Because what happened to them is a national tragedy and a humanitarian outrage. Because they are working people just like you and me, they are our neighbors, and they did nothing to cause this disaster, even though they are the ones paying the ultimate price for the corporate greed and government negligence that did. And because what happened to them could happen to any of us as corporations and the government continue to turn more of the US into a “sacrifice zone.”

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Editor-in-Chief
Ten years ago, I was working 12-hour days as a warehouse temp in Southern California while my family, like millions of others, struggled to stay afloat in the wake of the Great Recession. Eventually, we lost everything, including the house I grew up in. It was in the years that followed, when hope seemed irrevocably lost and help from above seemed impossibly absent, that I realized the life-saving importance of everyday workers coming together, sharing our stories, showing our scars, and reminding one another that we are not alone. Since then, from starting the podcast Working People—where I interview workers about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles—to working as Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review and now as Editor-in-Chief at The Real News Network, I have dedicated my life to lifting up the voices and honoring the humanity of our fellow workers.
 
Email: max@therealnews.com
 
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