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Editor's note: This is the first installment of a four-story series focused on the National Transportation Safety Board's investigative hearing that took place in East Palestine Thursday and Friday.
EAST PALESTINE -- The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) heard nearly 20 hours of testimony from 26 witnesses over a two-day investigative hearing that took place Thursday and Friday in the East Palestine gymnasium as an inquiry into what caused the February derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train and what changes need to be implemented to prevent a repeat of the rail disaster.
The rare in-field hearing was split into four sessions over two days that offered analyses on what emergency responders faced that night, the details behind the decision to perform a controlled burn of vinyl chloride in the days following the accident, the role the integrity of wheel bearings and functionality of wayside detectors played and overall tank car safety.
The hearings opened with a session titled "Hazard Communications and Emergency Responder Preparedness for the Initial Emergency Response" and revealed the chaos that unfolded in the minutes the train, known as N32, flew off the tracks between East Clark and East Taggart streets at 9:55 p.m. on Feb. 3.
The first 911 call came in to county dispatch minutes after an overheated wheel bearing on the 23rd car on the 150-car train ignited a fiery derailment of 50 cars, but it would take first responders an hour to get notification of what exactly was in the engulfed railcars as the flames melted the identifying placards on the cars. East Palestine dispatch placed calls to Norfolk Southern's Atlanta-based headquarters twice that night -- the first at 9:04 p.m. and the other at 9:30 p.m. -- but were unable to obtain the train consist, a detailed account of every car and every car's cargo.
However, at the same time dispatch was making their first call to Atlanta, Norfolk Southern was providing CTEH -- its contractor that conducts air quality monitoring for the railroad -- the consist that emergency crews on scene were requesting.
The crucial information finally reached the Columbiana County Emergency Management Agency via an email from Norfolk Southern at 9:56 p.m.
It was 10 p.m. before East Palestine Fire Department (EPFD) Chief Keith Drabick was notified of N32's chemical cargo and it was 10:23 p.m. before East Liverpool Hazmat Chief William Jones knew. The East Palestine Police Department was given the consist at 1:30 a.m. Most concerning, Drabick did not receive an official copy of the consist, but rather "found" a copy sitting on a desk at command post at 2:15 a.m. -- over five hours after the crash.
"How is it that Norfolk Southern could provide the contractors responsible for cleanup with the information within 12 minutes of the derailment and took an hour to several hours before providing it to emergency responders?" NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy asked.
During that first hour, local officials had little to no idea whether an evacuation of the village or the surrounding communities was necessary nor did first responders know what firefighting protocol to follow. The danger was palpable.
"Our first priority is responder safety then public safety," Jones said. "And first-responder safety was a challenge that night."
The session also gave the public the first look at the conditions first responders faced as the fire raged through released video and first-account testimony from Jones, Drabick, Eric Brewer of Beaver County Emergency Services and East Palestine Detective Dan Haueter. Dan Swords of the Ohio Department of Public Safety also gave testimony during the session as did Scott Deutsch, Norfolk Southern's regional manager of hazardous materials, who arrived on the scene.
Those on the ground that night testified that first responders did not know if there had been any fatalities in the derailment and, for a period of time, did not know if the train crew -- who had followed safety procedure by uncoupling the locomotive and traveling a mile away from the crash -- had survived. Communication from the crew was non-existent and communication from Norfolk Southern headquarters was limited. Communications between the responding emergency crews were also impaired. Drabick testified that the county does not utilize one designated radio frequency and radios from one municipality do not work with radios from another. In the chaos, first responders could not communicate with crews working on the other side of the track.
The ability to be prepared for such a calamity was also probed, with Drabick insisting "I don't think you can ever be prepared for something like this."
The NTSB learned that volunteer firefighters are required to undergo just 36 hours of training while paid firefighters are mandated to undergo nearly 200. The agency also learned that the majority of towns through which tracks snake are staffed by volunteer departments. Drabick for example testified that his department is "38 strong" with 37 volunteer personnel. The NTSB inquired as to whether additional training was necessary for emergency workers who respond to derailments.
Both Drabick, Jones and Brewer testified that increased training would help but said that it's easier said than done. Unpaid firefighters all work in other full-time positions, leaving the hours in which they can receive additional training limited.
"The majority of the fire departments in this county operate as volunteer fire departments," Drabick said. "Men and women are working full-time jobs elsewhere, sacrificing their time coming in the evenings or the days they are off."
Despite the limitations and challenges that volunteer-heavy departments face, Drabick said that more training and more volunteers are always needed.
"I've learned a lot of lessons, the biggest being that you can never have enough training and you can never have enough manpower," he said.
One element of enhanced training that Drabick and his department have already undertaken is the education in the use of the AskRail app that is now implemented in the village. Prior to and at the time of the derailment Drabick's department did not have access to the app -- which provides emergency workers with a complete, accurate and immediate copy of the train's consist. According to the developer's website, the Ask Rail app was "launched in 2014 as a collaborative effort among the emergency response community and all North American Class I railroads" and provides first responders "with immediate access to accurate, timely data about what type of hazardous materials a railcar is carrying so they can make an informed decision about how to respond to a rail emergency."
Drabick was also questioned as to whether having advanced knowledge of a train's contents before it enters East Palestine would help his department be better prepared in the event of a similar circumstance. Drabick said in the abstract, advanced notice of cargo -- a provision being pushed in various pieces of legislation in the wake of the rail disaster -- seems valuable but could be impractical when applied given the high-volume of rail traffic through the village.
"For our department for example, would it be beneficial? Potentially, but you also have to realize we have a train coming through on an average of nine minutes every day," Drabick said.
selverd@mojonew.com