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EAST PALESTINE -- An Ohio senator has asked the president to support a disaster declaration for the East Palestine area in the wake of a train derailment in February.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, followed through with his promise by urging President Joe Biden to approve Gov. Mike DeWine's request for a major disaster declaration.
"Nobody trusts Norfolk Southern to do what's right by the community and compensate residents for the significant costs -- including health care costs -- that have resulted from the company's negligence," Brown said in a letter to the president.
East Palestine needs federal resources now, Brown said.
Last Thursday marked six months since the derailment and a month since DeWine requested a disaster declaration from the president.
"Gov. DeWine said when he requested a declaration of disaster that there were no unmet needs. Nobody has gone door-to-door, so how can he say confidently that there are no unmet needs," resident Zsuzsa Gyenes said at an event sponsored by the Unity Council, a group concerned with the health and environmental impacts of the derailment.
"I was never asked. There were other people that were never asked. So how can they say when they have never spoken to us?" she said.
Unity Council president Jami Wallace and Gyenes organized an event held Monday where rocks with questions painted on them were left along a creek.
Wallace was grateful for Brown's support but stressed that East Palestine and the surrounding communities need more.
Other East Palestine residents who participated in the rock exercise expressed anger with the railroad ignoring some residents and with the village leaders who they say have helped fracture the town they should be helping to heal.
"Norfolk Southern's PR department has done a great job because they have divided our community that used to care about each other," Robin Seman said. "We are being so ostracized and are told that we should be grateful that Norfolk Southern is making our economic-disadvantaged town better than it was. There are people who aren't sick that are mad at the ones that are, and we are stuck in the middle."