EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — "Horrible,” said mother Shelby Walker. “Just unbelievable like we are living in a nightmare.”
The train derailed 800 feet from their family home. Walker's son Jerett remembers the moment he heard the crash.
“We walked down to it, me and my dad and my sister,” said Jerrett. “All we’ve seen was fire and then the next trailer exploded. So, we were running back whenever we got to the house, the trucks caught on fire.”
In August, Jerrett will be entering 7th grade at East Palestine Middle School, but his mother has other plans in the works. They just got back from Florida, where she’s working to relocate her family.
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“The whole point of us going down there was to check into relocating, looking for jobs, housing, stuff like that,” Walker said. “We are hoping Norfolk will step up and help us out with that since they took everything we have.”
East Palestine School District Superintendent Chris Neifer said some families are still on the fence about returning home and to the school district. About 200 families remain displaced and the district is working on learning plans for those children on a case-by-case basis.
“Trauma takes a long time, and families are going through a lot of different things,” said Neifer. “There’s a lot of tough decisions going on right now for some families. Do we stay? Do we not stay? Especially those families that are closer to the site.”
In April, two months after the derailment, 120 kids were online learning due to parents relocating, and 11 families pulled their kids out of the district completely. Niefer said towards the end of the school year, about 40 kids were opting in for online learning only.
“We are not seeing this mass exodus we were concerned with,” Niefer said. “We still won’t know for sure until the end of August, beginning of September exactly where we lie.”
For Walker, leaving seems like the smartest option for her family’s overall well-being.
"We felt great when we were in Florida; we didn’t have the headaches, we weren’t sick to our stomach, our anxiety was not there,” said Walker. “The second day I was home. I was nauseous, so tired, I had a headache, and my anxiety was through the roof."
Walker said leaving is not going to be easy.
“That’s going to break my heart,” Walker said. “My whole family are Bulldogs. We have been forever, and that’s probably the worst part. It’s not leaving the home, it’s not even so much leaving the town. It’s leaving the community and the friends that we have here and their friends in the school.”
Jarett doesn’t want to leave either, but believes it would be better for him in the long run.
"Sad, I wouldn’t like it, just to go somewhere else,” said Jarett. "Some of my friends are moving.”
Neifer believes families have to do what’s best for them but wants to make one thing clear to those who are planning to return come fall.
“We made the commitment to each other when this happened back in February to not allow our kids, not allow the district to be victims,” Niefer added. “We were going to work through this; we are...tough, we are resilient, and we are going to make sure we are here to continue that Bulldog tradition and get our kids the best education we can."
