EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Jessica Conard is a mom and lifelong East Palestine resident. She said she wonders every day if she and her family should take on the financial burden and relocate for their safety.
“This NTSB hearing, I really feel like is critical, not just for rail safety, but for my community to really start healing and understanding what happened,” she said. “We've been waiting a long time."
Conard was among the many who attended a community meeting Wednesday night with the NTSB ahead of the start of a two-day investigative hearing at East Palestine High School that started Thursday.
"The whole point of this is making sure that this doesn't happen again,” she said.
At Thursday's hearing, it was revealed that critical information took hours to get to the people who needed it. It revolves around what the train was carrying.
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Here's the timeline from the NTSB:
On Feb. 3, 2023, at 8:55 p.m. the derailment happened.
At 9:04 p.m., East Palestine dispatch called Norfolk Southern.
9:30 they tried calling again.
An hour after the wreck, Columbiana County Emergency Management Agency received the consist from Norfolk Southern.
Between 9:45 p.m. and 10 p.m., the deputy chief in East Palestine got the consist.
10:23 another responding fire chief received the consist.
1:30 a.m. - East Palestine police received it.
Then, at 2:15 a.m., the East Palestine fire chief found the consist printed on a desk at the command post.
However, an email chain between Norfolk Southern and its contractor for monitoring air quality showed the contractor was notified only minutes following the derailment.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy at the hearing asked Norfolk Southern’s regional manager of hazardous materials Scott Deutsch how that could happen.
Deutsch responded, “In this email that was our IH department sending it to their monitoring contractors who were based in Arkansas to bring monitoring based on the chemicals that were in the derailment. I can't explain the time frame."
Residents like Jessica Conard will continue watching the hearing when it continues Friday.
"I'm hopeful for this outcome that at a minimum, we'll have a shred of dignity left after this NTSB hearing, which is something that I feel like we haven't had,” she said.