EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — It’s tough to wrap your mind around losing your sense of normalcy in an instant, but the reality is, residing in abnormality is Frank McCracken’s reality in the months after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed just outside his home in East Palestine.
“Me, being this close, I guess I’ve just had to grow with it and deal with it,” McCracken said. “Number one — peace of mind. That’s all I want, I just want to get on with my life just like everyone else here.”
Six months later, McCracken, who lives a stone’s throw from the derailment site, showed a few things that have changed since the last time News 5’s DaLaun Dillard visited him back in February.
“They just put this up a week or two ago,” McCracken said, pointing to a paved-over lot that was once green space. “Yeah, it was all grass.”
They say the only constant in life is change, but McCracken still constantly finds himself worried about the same thing— and it hasn’t changed since Feb. 3.
“I remember the first time I met you. When I interviewed you, I asked if you felt comfortable living here, and you told me, 'No.' Has that changed?” Dillard asked McCracken when he visited earlier this month.
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“No, it’s still the same,” McCracken said. “I don’t feel comfortable being here.”
That level of discomfort is exacerbated for Nichole Chestnut, who had just moved to East Palestine barely 48 hours before the derailment.
“So everything I had moved in, all my kids' clothes, you know, all of our beds, furniture, just everything was just — the smell was terrible,” Chestnut said.
Six months later, does she regret moving to East Palestine?
“I would say that I regretted it then because of just the train derailment,” she said. “But as for East Palestine as a whole, I don't regret moving here. It's a lovely town, and the people deserve a lot better.”
McCracken and Chestnut both say they are a bit more confident in Norfolk Southern’s commitment to making things right because they see them working every day.
But that zeal for the town of East Palestine that you heard Chestnut reference is really what’s keeping most people going and why some say they believe they’ll make it through this.
“I’d like the whole world to know that this town has gone through hell, and they’re going to come back strong,” McCracken said. “You see signs around here that say ‘EP Strong,’ well these people mean this.”
