« Everyone’s scared. They had a normal life, then they’re told to grab what you can and get out now, which they did. And then they were told, well, you can go back and you’re on your own. You know, that’s not right, » Judith A. Lennington tells CNN’s Stephanie Griffith.
One well-known resident of East Palestine, Ohio, is book author Judith A. Lennington, who has published nearly 20 works of fiction, almost all of which can be found, she says, in the town’s library.
Lennington, 75, attended area schools from elementary to high school. And before striking out as a writer late in life, she worked for more than three decades in factories a stone’s throw from East Palestine. The community of nearly 5,000 is in northern Appalachia, about an hour from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and about 30 minutes from the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, Ohio.
On February 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying 20 cars of hazardous materials slid off the rails and caught fire, threatening to explode and prompting mass evacuations. State officials complied with the company’s request to intentionally burn off some of the chemicals at the site.
East Palestine has been through difficult times over the years, as its population has dwindled and industry moved away. But residents say nothing as cataclysmic has befallen the town as the train derailment that emitted a noxious plume of smoke and put the future of the community in question.
The derailment was just three miles from the farm where Lennington and her husband reside — far enough to avoid the evacuation that was ordered in parts of East Palestine, but well within range of the fumes. She spoke to CNN Opinion’s Stephanie Griffith about the disaster and its ongoing impact on her community.
CNN: You live a few miles from the site of the derailment. What has been your personal experience of the initial disaster and its ongoing impact?
Lennington: The railroad trains go right by here. We can see the train tracks from our house. They run right by my home to go into the center of East Palestine.
The cloud that went up in the sky was like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life. It looked like a huge black cloud with a tornado coming down from it. It was just awful. After the accident, we put quilts over the doors and over the windows, sealed the cracks and just stayed inside.
I can still smell it outside. Luckily the fumes are not strong here — the wind blows in the other direction — but I can, still, if I go from the house to the garage, I can feel my eyes burning. And I lose my voice after a while.
I know a lot of the people in town who were evacuated. My sister was evacuated.
