One of those nowhere places that, suddenly, a threatening column of smoke has placed on the map. This is East Palestine, an Ohio town of 4,700 inhabitants, founded in 1828 as Mechanicsburg, which was renamed in 1875 to pay homage to the Middle East region.
The municipal website, as if nothing had happened, welcomes you with these words in good-sized strokes: "The place where you want to be".
Its residents do not seem to share that statement. Not in this moment. Rather, they are afraid to continue there and this is how they express it these days to those who want to listen.
It is also true that there can always be someone who is interested in toxic tourism.
Just a little further down on that same website, and in small print, the statement "Important information, train derailment" is read.
Since last February 3, 38 wagons (the convoy consisted of 150 vehicles), of which 20 transported chemical products dangerous to health and combustible material, left the road in the municipality of that town, among the residents of Concern about the scope of the disaster and the potential long-term effects of the dumping of these products into the air, land and water has continued and only grown in East Palestine.
Five of the units contained vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen.
The Norfolk Southern train was the 32N, after the name of the company that operated it. The railwaymen knew it as the 32Nasty, that is, "disgusting". That feeling of disgust is what residents in that area are experiencing, with skin rashes, itchy eyes, breathing difficulties and headaches.
These are the symptoms detected despite the fact that the authorities reported this week that no contamination had been found either in the air or in the waterways – although the day before they were recommended to drink from a bottle – nor on land. The image of dead fish, three thousand, also triggered alarms with domestic animals, although there is no evidence that terrestrial species are affected.
On the day of the escape, fear of an explosion forced the evacuation of the perimeter, some 1,500 residents, and the controlled release and burning of substances. It was the day of the spectacular smoke, an image already indelible associated with East Palestine. Now they doubt if the burning responded to the attempt to avoid a major deflagration, according to the official version, or what it wanted was to allow the Norfolk to resume operations as soon as possible.
There are experts who link this release of gases with the symptoms manifested by citizens. While the analyzes do not show contamination indexes, the consequences on the horizon are unknown and this creates confusion, suspicions and triggers speculation.
The headache is also suffered by the Executive of President Joe Biden, whom the opposition and conspiracy theorists have placed at the center of the target.
“The community has questions. We listen to you, we see you and we are going to get to the bottom of the matter, ”said Michel Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “They have to trust the government,” he said on the ground Thursday.
Too late. Even then, the networks, which had a wide impact on the Fox network, were already loaded with conspiracy theories. People who admitted not knowing chemistry spoke of the greatest ecological disaster in history or invoked the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
Without any proof, and with no recorded deaths, the notice was issued that key Ohio water reservoirs were contaminated and that the damage had spread with the death of herds 100 miles away. There is no record of it.
The arrest of a NewsNation journalist while recording, and who was charged with trespassing, encouraged the idea that the railway company and the government wanted to hide the extent of the crisis.
“Planned attack, cover-up, or both?” read one far-right post. Put into hiding, it was even said that the shooting down of the hot air balloon and the tension with China were a cover to divert attention from the toxic train of conspiracies.
