EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — The East Palestine Fire Chief wants the February train derailment and chemical burn to foster broad change for the fire service.
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Chief Keith Drabick was the incident commander, and he’s about to send the NTSB his top safety recommendations.
Always expect the unexpected. Chief Drabick says it’s a lesson learned for the village and the country after the toxic derailment six months ago this Thursday.
“I can’t believe it’s six months; some days it seems like yesterday, other days it seems like years ago,” Drabick said.
We asked what his thoughts were looking back at that moment.
“Progress. It’s slow, slow but progress,” Drabick said.
Drabick said there has been progress in the clean-up and in the village moving forward. But said he knows there’s a ways to go.
"The town is slowly starting to recover; there’s still a lot of uncertainty, still a lot of unknowns, but I think progress. Just slowly getting there,” Drabick said.
In mid-June, Drabick testified at the rare NTSB hearing held in East Palestine on the derailment.
He told investigators he was given 13 minutes to decide whether to vent and burn toxic chemicals.
We asked if he felt like he was in the hot seat, being the incident commander.
“Ah, slightly yes, and that’s part of the job, part of the responsibility — for both good and bad,” Drabick said.
This week, Drabick will submit his safety recommendations to the NTSB.
He’d like to see a regional communications center with a regional frequency for all departments to operate on.
Drabick also wants better communication between railroads and fire crews, including getting a list of everything on a train faster.
"It was brought up in the hearing that they were able to get that to one of their contractors within 10 to 15 minutes from the incident by email — that should stand the same for us,” Drabick said.
Drabick thinks there should be more paid staff at volunteer fire stations like his and more training that is easily accessible and more affordable for smaller departments.
He says volunteers work full-time jobs and use vacation time for training.
“I almost think there needs to be some kind of allotment, much like they do for the National Guard," Drabick said.
He has an idea to help pay for things needed to be a better service to the community.
“I think we’re at the point now where maybe we need to look at some type of a tax or something placed on the manufacturers of these hazardous materials or the shippers of the materials to help cover costs associated with us,” Drabick said.
News 5 Investigators asked what he hopes, should this ever happen again.
“That nobody has to go through that. That information is shared better, decisions are made with better information, more transparency,” he said.
Drabick expressed his gratitude for his volunteer firefighters and the hundreds of crews that came from three states. He says they worked as one team.
